The Chinese authorities allow banks to acquire shares in insurers' capital

The new Chinese regulations allow banks to invest in insurance companies. This move is accompanied by safeguards whose objective is to ensure the separation of activities and to reduce banks' appetite. The latter can only invest in the capital of one insurer, and cannot, except for special cases, provide loans for the company to which they are related nor for a client recommended by the insurer. The capitalization of Chinese banks is 18.7 times as important as that of insurers. This ratio is only of 2 for the United States.