AIIB may speed up lending approvals

The new China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is considering giving senior staff more power over loan approval than at existing multilateral lenders to speed up the decision process, officials familiar with the talks said.

Under proposals to be discussed this week in Singapore, the board of directors, which represents member countries, would not sit at the lender's headquarters. The threshold and conditions to delegate loan decisions to management have not yet been agreed, according to the officials from founder-member countries, who asked not to be named as the talks are not public.

China, which lined up support of 56 nations for the $100-billion bank, wants to set it apart from institutions such as the World Bank, which borrowers have criticized for having too many conditions and authorization layers.