On Thursday, former vice president of China Agricultural Bank, Lou Wenlong, was officially announced to have fallen from grace, seven years after his resignation. Lou Wenlong had previously served as the director of the Banking Supervision Bureau in Beijing and was a veteran in the banking industry, his downfall sending shockwaves through the Chinese financial sector.
Around 5 p.m. on May 16th, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National Supervisory Commission released a statement on their website, stating that Lou Wenlong, former party committee member and vice president of China Agricultural Bank, is suspected of serious violations of discipline and law, and is currently undergoing disciplinary review and supervision investigation by the central authorities.
Publicly available resume information shows that Lou Wenlong was born in January 1958 in Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province. He graduated from Zhejiang Banking School (now Zhejiang Institute of Finance) with a major in banking in 1980. He holds a bachelor’s degree and is a senior economist. Lou Wenlong’s wife, Wu Xiaomin, also graduated from Zhejiang Banking School and previously served as the general manager of the Investment Banking Department at Guoxin Securities.
Zhejiang Banking School was formerly a direct subsidiary school of the People’s Bank of China. After graduating, Lou Wenlong stayed at the school as the secretary of the Communist Youth League before joining the People’s Bank of China.
Lou Wenlong later served as the director of the Head Office Division of the People’s Bank of China Zhejiang Branch, the director of the Bank Inspection Department at the Hangzhou Financial Regulation Office of the Shanghai Branch of the People’s Bank of China, and the deputy director of the Banking Supervision Department for the China Construction Bank at the Banking Supervision Department of the People’s Bank of China.
After the establishment of the China Banking Regulatory Commission in 2003, Lou Wenlong served as the deputy director and later director of the Banking Supervision Department II, overseeing the supervision of joint-stock banks and urban commercial banks. In February 2009, he was appointed as the director of the Beijing Banking Regulatory Bureau of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
In August 2012, Lou Wenlong joined China Agricultural Bank. During his nearly five years in office, he was in charge of asset and liability management, non-performing loan disposal, and the Agriculture Department, among other departments.
According to the annual report of the Agricultural Bank, Lou Wenlong joined the bank in August 2012, became the vice president in September 2012, and was appointed as an executive director and vice president of the bank in December 2012. He later also served as the head of the Shanghai Management Department of Agricultural Bank.
In April 2017, Agricultural Bank announced that due to work changes, Lou Wenlong had requested to resign from his positions as executive director, vice president of Agricultural Bank, and member of the board’s Strategic Planning Committee and the “Three Agricultural” Financial Development Committee.
At that time, there were reports in the media suggesting that Lou Wenlong might join Ant Financial. However, Ant Financial denied these rumors.
Following that, Lou Wenlong participated in various public activities, conferences, and forums in his capacity as the Director of Zhejiang Entan Industry and Finance Research Institute and former vice president of China Agricultural Bank.
According to the China Fund News, over the past year, the Agricultural Bank system has initiated 847 cases, disciplined 789 individuals, handled 36 cases of job-related crimes, and investigated 8 senior personnel directly managed by the head office.
Moreover, with Lou Wenlong’s downfall, within less than six months, 24 mid-level Communist Party cadres have been investigated.