China Banks

The financial-technology boom that turned China into the world's biggest market for electronic payments is now changing how banks interact with companies that drive most of its economic growth

Experienced local recruits tend to prefer state-backed companies such as China International Capital and Citic Securities Co

The move comes as Beijing's deleveraging campaign has gradually pushed up lending costs for the corporate sector and restricted companies from tapping alternative, murkier funding sources

China's leadership are struggling with a vast debt mountain that has seen Moody's and Standard & Poor's downgrade their sovereign ratings for the country

ICBC and Construction Bank both reported loan-loss coverage ratios below a regulatory minimum of 150 percent of existing nonperforming loans when they disclosed third-quarter earnings

China's four biggest banks reported that staff numbers fell by the most in at least six years in the first half, highlighting the possibility that employment has peaked at the firms that are the world's biggest providers of banking jobs.A decline of 1.5 per cent from the end of last year left 1.62 million workers at Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of China, earnings filings showed. Agricultural Bank, the No. 1 bank employer, saw its number of employees slip below half a million.While a fall in the first half is not unusual, the 25,000-job decline is the biggest since at least 2010 and analysts at firms including BOC International Holdings and DBS Vickers Hong Kong say changes to how banking is done will limit prospects for increases."Chinese banks went through years of expansion, adding physical outlets that helped to push their staff numbers to a peak," said Polar Zhang, a Beijing-based bank analyst at BOC Interna

But accepting stakes in highly indebted companies is likely to make banks even more reluctant to shut them down