In 2025, financial regulators issued a total of 6,521 penalty notices, with total fines amounting to 2.641 billion yuan. Among the state-owned banks, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) received the highest number of penalties, while Bank of China incurred the largest total fine amount.
According to data from Enterprise Early Warning, from January 1 to December 31, 2025 (disclosure date), the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), and their local offices issued 6,521 penalty notices to 1,094 banking institutions (including credit cooperatives, village banks, private banks, and foreign banks). This represents an increase of 155 notices compared to the previous year, with total fines rising by 902 million yuan to 2.641 billion yuan, indicating a continued trend of stricter supervision.
Of the 6,521 penalty notices, the NFRA issued 4,301, while the PBOC and SAFE issued 1,951 and 269 notices, respectively. Rural commercial banks received the most penalty notices by quantity, whereas joint-stock banks faced the highest total fine amount.
In 2025, regulators issued 737 penalty notices (excluding individual penalties) to rural commercial banks, with fines totaling approximately 577 million yuan; the Big Six state-owned banks received 628 notices, with fines amounting to about 637 million yuan; joint-stock banks were issued 396 notices, with penalties reaching roughly 732 million yuan; city commercial banks received 276 notices, with fines totaling about 298 million yuan.
Regarding the reasons for penalties, the 6,521 notices primarily involved violations in credit business, anti-money laundering operations, inadequate internal control systems, payment and settlement business irregularities, insufficient employee behavior management, data reporting and governance violations, bill business irregularities, RMB management violations, and foreign exchange business violations.
Among these, credit business violations were particularly prominent, involving 2,873 penalty notices, accounting for 44.06% of the total. Specific issues included failure to conduct proper due diligence in the "three checks" for loans, improper loan issuance and processing, inaccurate classification of credit assets, improper disposal or concealment of non-performing assets, and approving loans beyond authorized limits.
Furthermore, anti-money laundering violations constituted the second most significant problem, involving 1,376 penalty notices. Key infractions included failure to perform customer identification obligations as required, failure to report large or suspicious transactions, conducting transactions with unidentified clients or opening anonymous accounts, and failure to properly retain customer information and transaction records.
Additionally, inadequate internal control systems ranked as the third major issue, involving 1,342 penalty notices. Primary violations encompassed breaches of credit investigation business regulations, non-compliance with prudential operating rules, charging unreasonable fees inconsistent with service quality, violations of treasury management regulations, and insufficient management of bank seals.
It is noteworthy that in 2025, anti-money laundering violations became the second most common reason for penalties, whereas in 2024, inadequate internal controls held that position.
Among the penalties received by the state-owned banks, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (including both institutional and individual penalties) received the highest number of notices at 311. China Construction Bank followed with 266 notices, and Agricultural Bank of China ranked third with a total of 261 notices.
In terms of total fine amount, Bank of China ranked first, followed by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China, with total fines of 148.3631 million yuan, 140.1834 million yuan, and 138.3579 million yuan, respectively.
Looking at the average fine per notice, Bank of Communications had the highest average at 1.1966 million yuan, followed by Bank of China with an average of 1.1501 million yuan. Regarding the number of large penalties (single fines exceeding 1 million yuan), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had the most, with 12 such notices amounting to a cumulative total of 95.86 million yuan.
China Construction Bank and Postal Savings Bank of China followed, each with 10 large penalty notices, accumulating fines of 19.10 million yuan and 45.65 million yuan, respectively. Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China each received 9 large penalty notices, with cumulative fines of 112.34 million yuan and 95.39 million yuan, respectively.
Bank of Communications received the fewest large penalties, with only 7 notices totaling 80.58 million yuan in fines. Notably, the average fine per notice for state-owned banks this year was higher than the previous year.
Regarding exceptionally large penalties, Bank of China received the single largest fine among state-owned banks. On October 31, 2025, Bank of China was fined 97.90 million yuan by the National Financial Regulatory Administration for imprudent management in areas including corporate governance, loans, interbank business, bills, asset quality, and disposal of non-performing assets.
The second-largest penalty was imposed on Bank of Communications. On December 10, 2025, the bank was warned, had illegal gains of 239,821.16 yuan confiscated, and was fined 67.8343 million yuan for 11 violations, including breaches of account management regulations, clearing management rules, real-name merchant management stipulations, counterfeit currency business regulations, misappropriation of fiscal deposits or funds, and violations of treasury account setup and usage rules.
The third-largest penalty was given to Agricultural Bank of China. On January 7, 2025, the bank was warned, had illegal gains of 4.87594705 million yuan confiscated, and was fined 46.72941544 million yuan for 12 violations, which included breaches of account management, clearing management, real-name merchant management, counterfeit currency business regulations, RMB circulation rules, failure to properly retain customer identity information and transaction records, and conducting transactions with unidentified clients.
For Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which received the most penalty notices, credit business violations and foreign exchange business irregularities were the primary reasons. For instance, on October 11, 2025, ICBC's Shenzhen branch was fined 11.50 million yuan for violations in loan and guarantee business due diligence, exceeding authorized limits for business operations, and failure to implement actual loan, actual payment principles.
On December 18, 2025, ICBC was jointly fined a total of 11.4259 million yuan by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange for conducting cross-border asset transfer business without approval, failing to reasonably verify the authenticity of transaction documents and their consistency with foreign exchange receipts and payments for current account fund transactions, processing capital account fund transactions in violation of regulations, and failing to conduct international balance of payments statistical reporting as required.
The aforementioned penalties indicate that major state-owned banks need to further strengthen internal management, enhance compliance awareness, and ensure that all operations, especially in credit business, strictly adhere to regulatory statutes to prevent the recurrence of similar violations. Simultaneously, these penalties reflect the intensifying trend of financial supervision and the critical importance of compliance management in banking operations.
Moving forward, strengthening the entire credit process management, addressing weaknesses in anti-money laundering compliance, and健全 internal control systems will be key strategic focuses for the banking industry to meet regulatory requirements and achieve stable operations.
