Bank branches punished for irregularities

China's banking regulator has punished eight bank branches involved in two cases of State-owned enterprises illicitly using loans for stock market and property market investment.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) uncovered the cases, amounting to about 5 billion yuan in irregularities, during an investigation that started at the beginning of 2007, it said in a statement yesterday.

The eight branches involved belong to Bank of Communications, Bank of Beijing, China Merchants Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Industrial Bank, China CITIC Bank and Shenzhen Development Bank.