Original title: Weekly review - From Lujiazui to Financial Street, strong financial oversight is becoming clearer, more specific and more complete. Source: Zhongbao Xinzhi. At the opening ceremony of the 2026 Financial Street Forum annual meeting, Ding Xiangqun, head of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, said in a keynote speech that the effectiveness of regulation must be earnestly improved and financial risks must be effectively 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 and put into practice the expectations of strong financial oversight, with the intensity even pushed further to the maximum. Since the establishment of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, strong financial oversight has always been placed first and will not be weakened by personnel changes.
The financial regulatory signals, framework, levels and logic released in the Lujiazui debut were clear and rich. It not only reiterated the need to have "teeth and thorns" and "edges and corners," but also proposed full coverage with no exceptions, regulating both lawful and unlawful activities, and focusing on oversight 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 that all financial activities should be brought under regulation in accordance with the law, and that categorized and tiered regulation should be optimized. At the same time, key people, key matters and key behaviors that cause major financial risks must be seriously investigated and punished, rigid constraints must be strengthened, deterrence must be enhanced, and the regulatory system must truly become a "live high-voltage line."
From the boulder thrown into the lake that is the Measures for the Administration of Online Marketing of Financial Products to the new Insurance Law that is about to emerge, from the continuously deepening "integration of reporting and implementation" to the intensively advancing "gold regulatory project," the overall regulatory requirements of full-process, full-chain, full-coverage and no-exception remind all market entities not to harbor any illusions, but to hold awe in their hearts.
Insurance should return to its protective nature. This is no longer a slogan, but is becoming policy, institutions and law, and is self-generating powerful functions of expectation, early warning and self-discipline. Ding Xiangqun said in the speech that currently 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 keeping with the times.
At the level of rule-of-law construction, major progress has been made in the legislative and amendment work for the Financial Law, the Banking Supervision Law, the Insurance Law and others. 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 amendment to the new Insurance Law soliciting public comments, it is clearly 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, the system has continued to fill shortcomings, from top-level design to regulatory gaps, so as to truly realize a five-in-one regulatory system of 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, systematic governance and forward-looking governance, forming a closed-loop regulation of pre-emptive prevention, in-process intervention and post-event 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 restraining the industry. Rigid, strict and precise accountability also constitutes another main line of strong financial oversight. Whether it is the merger and reorganization of troubled insurers, market exit, and the later reckoning of responsible executives, or common behaviors in the insurance industry such as irregular operations, benefit transfer and infringement of consumer rights, the approach is to strike as soon as problems emerge.
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, and the quality and efficiency of industry development were uneven. But today's 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 the essence of protection.
The results have been obvious. Formerly 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 inefficient products are being gradually eliminated, while deeper efforts are being made in key tracks such as technology, green development, inclusive finance, elderly care and health, precisely aligning with the development needs of finance's "five major articles."
Today's insurance industry 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 the cornerstone of steady and long-term progress. Only by maintaining normalized strict regulation, institutionalized risk prevention and control, and precise industry governance, and by holding the bottom line of preventing systemic financial risks, can the market ecosystem be purified and the industry's reputation be enhanced.
Everything can be traced back to the "National Ten Articles 3.0" for the insurance industry. The core main line of strong regulation, risk prevention and promotion of high-quality development has long defined the flow speed, volume and embankments of this great river that is the insurance industry. Development is the absolute principle, and stability overrides everything. Being able to achieve the greatest common denominator and the best dynamic balance between these two is the ticket to high-quality development. In finance, security depends on institutions, vitality depends on the market, and order depends on the rule of law.
Comments