Bank of China irregularities revealed

one of China's biggest lenders, announced yesterday that the National Audit Office had revealed its irregularities, most of which the lender said have been straightened up, the Oriental Morning Post reported today.

These irregularities include that some branches and sub-branches issued credit without fully being in accordance with China's macro-control policies and loan approval procedures; some note businesses were approved without strictly checking the background and some have not yet been carried out.

Other irregularities are that some branches' financial accounting is not standardized enough; some branches are involved in economic crime cases.

The lender said that most of these irregularities happened before 2004, when the bank launched its shareholding reform.