After long-awaited discussions, China is set to unveil a new deposit insurance system as early as the first half of 2015.
China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan confirmed this at a news conference earlier today.
"As a major step in financial reform in China, at the end of last year, the draft for new deposit insurance regulations was published for public consultation. The feedback was mostly positive, which means it's time to launch the scheme this year. And I say in the first half of the year."
The scheme is an important part of any financial safety net. It is considered a precondition for China to free up deposit rates.
At the press conference, Zhou also stressed that the country is sticking to its prudent monetary policy despite the use of a string of new policy options.
"Though the central bank has used a string of new monetary policy tools, including some measures targeting specific sectors, the result in terms of money supply (or M2) shows proper growth, so that's why the prudent monetary policy has not changed."
Zhou also mentioned the possibility for China to fully liberalize interest rates.
China's central bank last month adjusted the upper limit of the floating band of deposit rates to 1.3 times the benchmark from the previous 1.2 times.
