In Beijing, a notary institution had 180 million RMB funds deposited in a bank, which were gradually transferred over the years, with the account balance eventually dwindling to just over 448,000 RMB. The bank responded by stating that the individuals responsible had left their positions, and their actions constituted personal crimes for which the bank should not be held accountable.
The incident dates back to December 2013 when a notary office in Beijing opened a public account at a branch of a bank in Dalian and deposited large sums of money. For several years, the bank system showed no abnormalities in the account transactions and interest settlements, with the bank customer manager regularly providing the notary office’s financial personnel with bank-stamped account statements and interest receipts.
By June 2018, the account balance indicated that the total deposits and interest exceeded 180 million RMB. The notary office then signed an agreement with the bank to use the funds to purchase bank financial products. However, upon maturity of the financial products, the bank failed to repay the principal and returns. It was only upon further inquiry that the notary office discovered the actual remaining balance was only about 440,000 RMB.
According to a report by ifeng, in December 2013, shortly after the first 40 million RMB fund was deposited, the individuals involved impersonated the notary office’s accountant, using materials with authentic unit seals but forged signatures to successfully apply for online banking encryption devices from the bank and swiftly transferred almost all the funds. The unauthorized fund transfers were not authorized by the notary office, and the true financial condition of the account remained unnoticed by customers for several years.
In the following years, the individuals involved repeated the aforementioned actions multiple times by obtaining new devices, altering online banking information, and tampering with account contact details, creating an information loop within the bank system inaccessible to customers.
The investigation of the incident also revealed that the bank customer manager, Li, had provided the notary office with forged account statements and interest receipts. Among the individuals implicated in the case was Luo, who was formerly in charge of the Dalian Bank’s Beijing branch and whose relatives were found to appear on terminal accounts with abnormal fund flows.
During the litigation process, the bank asserted that the responsible individuals had either left their positions or were “mentally unstable,” labeling their actions as personal criminal acts for which the bank should not be held responsible.
In recent years, such incidents are not isolated cases. From the “disappearance of 250 million RMB in deposits at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Nanning Branch” to the “abnormal loss of 1.2 billion RMB in agreement deposits at Chang’an Bank,” and cases reported at some branches of the Bank of China, large sums of money have been transferred within the banking system. These events often involve bank employees exploiting their positions or management loopholes to misappropriate funds through forged documents, irregular operations, etc., with banks subsequently absolving themselves of responsibility citing “personal criminal acts.”
Analysts point out that the recurring nature of such cases is continuously eroding public confidence in the security of the banking system. Some observers believe that the root cause of the issue lies not with individual staff misconduct but with long-standing institutional deficiencies such as weak internal controls, ineffective audit supervision, and unclear accountability mechanisms.