On June 30, the market value of Bank of Nanjing’s stocks dropped precipitously, losing more than 7.4 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion) following a sudden leadership change. Experts have described the Zhengzhou banking crisis as another example of China’s struggling economy amid unrelenting “zero-COVID” policies, prolonged lockdowns and movement curbs that have resulted in massive supply chain disruptions and impacted consumer spending. Rural banks in Henan are not the only Chinese financial institutions seeing financial trouble in recent weeks. Chinese Police Investigated Over Attack on Female Diners in Tangshan.Hongkongers Fear Tightening Regime Control as Officials Promote Mainland-style ‘Health Codes’.Scorching Heat Waves Sweep Through 84 Cities in China, Killing Multiple People and Triggering Govt.Going deeper, the trouble points to the triggering of systemic financial risks as China’s real estate crisis spirals out of control.
Mainland Chinese media have estimated the number of affected depositors to number around 400,000. However, the bank depositors later found out that they could not make withdrawals after state media reports revealed that the head of the banks’ parent company was being prosecuted for tax evasion, fraud and other financial crimes. The protesters are among thousands of customers who opened accounts at the banks in Henan and neighboring Anhui Province that offered relatively high interest rates. A woman looks on as plainclothes gather on Jin Zhengzhou, the capital of China’s Henan Province as thousands of people protest their frozen bank accounts. Some even reported being questioned by police officers after checking into their hotels about why they had come to the city. Many protesters who set out for Zhengzhou to demand action from banking regulators found that their health status on the app had turned red - preventing them from traveling and risking arrest for breaking COVID protocols. They were met with beatings and arrests at the hands of uniformed and plainclothes public security officers.
On July 10, following many days of demonstrations across the central province of around 95 million people, droves of people gathered outside the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) branch in Zhengzhou, Henan’s capital, to demand their money. Angry protesters took to the streets in China’s Henan Province on July 10 after their bank accounts were frozen overnight without explanation - and ended up in violent clashes with the police as they fought for access to their life’s savings.