China News Network, March 3 (Zhongxin Finance Peng Jingru) received a large fine, was "blacklisted" by the Hunan Housing and Construction Department, and the net profit fell... Bohai Bank has been "troubled" a bit lately.

Unauthorized deduction of regulatory funds, Hunan openly "blocked" Bohai Bank

On March 3, the website of the Hunan Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development released the "Circular of the Office of the Coordination Mechanism for Real Estate Work of Hunan Province on the Unauthorized Allocation of Pre-sale Funds for Commercial Housing by Bohai Bank Co., Ltd." (hereinafter referred to as the "Circular"). The circular requires that from now on, the regulatory authorities of pre-sale funds for commercial housing in cities, prefectures and counties (cities and districts) will suspend cooperation with Bohai Bank Co., Ltd. and its grassroots business units under its jurisdiction in the supervision of pre-sale funds for commercial housing.

In order to strictly supervise the pre-sale funds of commercial housing and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the buyers, the Office of the Coordination Mechanism for Real Estate Work of Hunan Province suggests that relevant departments and units carefully select Bohai Bank Co., Ltd. and its grassroots business units under its jurisdiction as the storage bank for housing provident fund, property maintenance fund and other funds, so as to effectively prevent risks.

Screenshot of Hunan Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development website information.

According to the circular, in 2018, Bohai Bank Zhuzhou Branch signed the "Zhuzhou City New Commercial Housing Pre-sale Fund Supervision Cooperation Agreement" with the Zhuzhou City Commercial Housing Pre-sale Fund Regulatory Authority, which is a cooperative bank for the supervision of pre-sale funds of commercial housing in Zhuzhou City. From May 2019 to June 5, Bohai Bank Zhuzhou Branch signed the "Zhuzhou City New Commercial Housing Pre-sale Fund Supervision Agreement" with Zhuzhou Desheng Real Estate Co., Ltd. and Zhuzhou Ideal City Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. respectively, becoming the supervision bank for the pre-sale funds of commercial housing in projects such as Evergrande Zhuzhou Yuyuan and Peking University Resources Zhuzhou Tianchi.

The circular pointed out that in March and July 2021, Bohai Bank Zhuzhou Branch violated the "Measures for the Supervision of Pre-sale Funds for New Commercial Housing in Zhuzhou City", as well as the "Cooperation Agreement" and "Supervision Agreement", and withheld the key supervision funds of Evergrande Yuyuan and Peking University Resources Tianchi projects without the consent of the regulatory authorities for pre-sale funds for commercial housing in Zhuzhou City, resulting in insufficient funds for the resumption of work and production of the project, and difficulty in delivering houses after the deadline, causing frequent petitions and complaints from housing buyers, which had a great adverse impact on social stability.

The latest response: involving the Evergrande Real Estate public project, has begun to solve

"Our department urged the Zhuzhou Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau to interview and warn the Bohai Bank Zhuzhou Branch, and issued a written rectification notice, ordering it to return the unauthorized deduction of the pre-sale supervision funds for commercial housing, but the rectification has not been in place." The above advisory shows:

According to the first financial report, the relevant staff of Bohai Bank Changsha Branch said that they are verifying the above matters and are also communicating with local government departments.

According to the interface news, the staff of Bohai Bank Changsha Branch replied that the report involved the public project of Evergrande Real Estate, and there were problems with the Evergrande Real Estate project before, they had a fund supervision account in Bohai Bank, in order to ensure the project, Bohai Bank Zhuzhou Branch misappropriated the funds in the supervision account, but did not return them in time, and it has been solved at present. The incident had no impact on personal mortgage users.

According to the national enterprise credit information publicity system, Zhuzhou Desheng Real Estate Co., Ltd. is 100% controlled by Changsha Real Estate Co., Ltd., Evergrande Real Estate Group. According to the information disclosed by the Hunan Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau, Bohai Bank Zhuzhou Branch was originally a Zhuzhou sub-branch, and was upgraded to a secondary branch at the end of 2017 after the application of Bohai Bank Changsha Branch.

Receiving tens of millions of fines, Bohai Bank's performance in 2022 is not optimistic

Since the beginning of this year, Bohai Bank has been issuing fines. At present, two tens of millions of fines have been received.

In February this year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission disclosed the violations of laws and regulations of five financial institutions investigated and dealt with in accordance with the law, including a special on-site inspection of Bank of China, Minsheng Bank and Bohai Bank to support the implementation of major policies for private enterprises and small and micro enterprises, and found that the above-mentioned institutions had misappropriated loan funds, untrue statistical data, irregular review procedures for major related party transactions, and other violations of laws and regulations, including a fine of 2.5 million yuan for the head office of Bohai Bank, 430.1230 million yuan for branches, and a warning to one responsible person.

Infographic RMB. Photo by Jin Shuo

On March 3, the People's Bank of China released a fine showing that Bohai Bank violated deposit reserve management and account management regulations; The central bank gave a warning to 13 violations of laws and regulations, including the collection, provision, inquiry and related management provisions of credit information, confiscated 12,106,99 yuan of unlawful gains, and imposed a fine of 1589,49,1696 yuan, with a total amount of about <>.<> million yuan.

In addition, Bohai Bank's performance in 2022 is not optimistic. On the evening of March 3, Bohai Bank released its 29 annual report, showing that the bank's net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company last year was 2022.61 billion yuan, down 07.29% from the same period last year.

Bohai Bank achieved operating income of 2022.264 billion yuan in 65, down 9.35% year-on-year, of which net interest income was 226.69 billion yuan, down 9.97% from the previous year. (End)