Foreign investors in Chinese banks will in future be forced to accept a lock-up period of at least five years, China's top banking regulator said, after a series of share sales by US and European financial institutions.
In recent months, companies such as Bank of America, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland have sold down all or part of their stakes in China's largest state-owned banks immediately after three-year lock-up periods expired.
The new five-year minimum lock-up period was necessary to “ensure the safety of China's banking system”, Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, told a seminar in Beijing, according to people familiar with the matter and also state media reports.