At the opening ceremony of the 2026 Financial Street Forum Annual Meeting, Ding Xiangqun, head of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, stated in a keynote speech that the effectiveness of regulation must be genuinely enhanced and financial risks must be vigorously prevented and controlled.
From Shanghai's Lujiazui in June to Beijing's Financial Street in October, Ding Xiangqun's two keynote speeches have each delivered on and put into practice the expectations of strong financial oversight, with the intensity even pushed to the maximum. Since the establishment of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, strong financial oversight has always been placed first, and it will not be weakened by personnel changes.
The financial regulatory signals, framework, levels and logic released at the Lujiazui debut were clear and rich. It not only reiterated the need to have "teeth and spikes" and "edges and corners," but also proposed full coverage with no exceptions, regulating both legal and illegal activities, and focusing on supervision across the entire institutional life cycle, the entire business chain and the entire risk process.
Four months later at the Financial Street Forum, Ding Xiangqun reiterated the need to bring all financial activities into regulation in accordance with the law and to optimize classified and tiered regulation. At the same time, key persons, key matters and key behaviors that cause major financial risks must be seriously investigated and dealt with, rigid constraints must be strengthened, deterrence must be enhanced, and the regulatory system must truly become a "live high-voltage line."
From the blockbuster Administrative Measures for Online Marketing of Financial Products to the forthcoming new Insurance Law, from the continuously deepening "integration of reporting and execution" to the intensively advancing "Golden Supervision Project," the overall regulatory requirements of full-process, full-chain, full-coverage and no-exception oversight remind all market participants not to harbor any illusions, but rather to hold awe in their hearts.
Insurance returning to its protective nature is no longer a slogan. It is becoming policy, institutions and law, and is spontaneously generating powerful expectations, early warning and self-discipline functions. Ding Xiangqun said in the speech that the operating environment, structural characteristics and risk forms of the financial industry have undergone profound changes, and regulatory capacity and standards must be improved in step with the times.
At the level of rule-of-law construction, major progress has been made in the legislation and amendment of the Financial Law, the Banking Supervision Law and the Insurance Law. Once laws and institutions are established, enforcement is the top priority, because the former cannot automatically produce a deterrent effect. For example, in the draft for public comment on the revised Insurance Law, it is explicitly required that regulatory measures be taken against companies that violate prudent operation rules or seriously endanger the stable operation of the insurance industry.
In recent years, institutions have continued to shore up weak links, from top-level design to regulatory gaps, so as to truly realize a five-in-one regulatory system covering institutional regulation, conduct regulation, functional regulation, penetrating regulation and continuous regulation. The passive governance model of the past, which emphasized punishment over prevention, has been completely abandoned in favor of source governance, systemic governance and forward-looking governance, forming a closed-loop regulatory process of ex-ante prevention, in-process intervention and ex-post accountability. This not only eliminates financial market risks but also eliminates chaos in financial marketing, opening up incremental market space for high-quality development and allowing the industry to move forward with a lighter load.
At the same time, the deterrent effect of discipline inspection and accountability is also effectively constraining the industry. Rigid, strict and precise accountability constitutes another main line of strong financial oversight. Whether it is the merger, reorganization and market exit of troubled insurers, or the "settling of accounts afterward" with the executives involved, or common behaviors in the insurance industry such as irregular operations, benefit transfer and infringement of consumer rights, the approach is to crack down as soon as problems surface.
In fact, the deep transformation of regulatory philosophy has rewritten industry rules and reshaped the industry ecosystem. Previously, some insurers were caught in severe involution, relying on channel business, irregular arbitrage and extensive competition to seize the market, resulting in uneven development quality and efficiency across the industry. Today, however, the broader environment of strong financial oversight and insurance returning to its protective nature, along with the new orientation of compliance first, is forcing the entire industry to return to its fundamental protection role.
During this period, the results have been obvious. Previously wildly growing insurance businesses, such as credit insurance, have gradually standardized service boundaries, strictly controlled risk exposure, and become more focused on serving the real economy and technological innovation. Homogeneous, high-risk and marketing-heavy low-efficiency products are being phased out, while deep cultivation is being carried out in key tracks such as technology, green development, inclusive finance, elderly care and health, precisely aligning with the development needs of the "five major articles" of finance.
The insurance industry today has bid farewell to the old cycle of extensive expansion and entered a new cycle of compliant operation and quality-and-efficiency improvement. As we have repeatedly argued, strong regulation has never been a shackle on industry development, but rather the cornerstone for the industry to travel steadily and far. Only through normalized strict regulation, institutionalized risk prevention and control, and precise industry governance can the bottom line of preventing systemic financial risks be upheld, the market ecosystem be purified and the industry's reputation be enhanced.
Everything can be traced back to the "Guo Tiao 3.0" for the insurance industry. The core main line of strong regulation, risk prevention and high-quality development has long set the flow speed, flow volume and embankments of this great river of the insurance industry. Development is the absolute principle, and stability overrides everything. The greatest common divisor and best dynamic balance that can achieve both is the entry ticket to high-quality development. In finance, security depends on institutions, vitality depends on the market, and order depends on the rule of law.
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