China

Offshore funds have to rely on accounting and law firms throughout the three- to four-year life cycle of a transaction in China, at cost of up to 15% of the transaction's value.

The PBOC has lowered the interest rate on its medium-term lending facility, injected 100bn yuan in liquidity via reverse repos, and ordered banks to disinfect yuan bills.

China Minsheng Bank, China Everbright Bank and Huatai Securities have been fined a combined 52mn yuan for failures in customer identification, transaction reporting and record keeping.

The CSRC has relaxed pricing and lock-up restrictions to incentivise listed companies to raise new funding from strategic investors through non-public offerings.

Hu Huaibang is said to have used his position to help CEFC China Energy and HNA Group obtain billions of dollars in credit that fuel their expansions.

Local banks are asked to be more tolerant of bad loans and to reduce their profit targets, as the novel coronavirus epidemic keeps borrowers from resuming normal business operations.

A decision has not yet been made to revise a previous arrangement that excludes companies with secondary listings and weighted voting rights from Stock Connect.

The approval follows a commitment from China to expedite pending licence applications from US payments providers as part of the phase one trade deal.

When the measures take effect, a $1bn asset threshold required of foreign financial institutions to hold shares in domestic trust companies will be effectively cancelled.