A view of the PBC building in Beijing on August 22, 2022 Photo: VCG

Fan Yifei, vice governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), the country’s central bank, is under disciplinary and supervisory investigation, according to an official statement released on Saturday.

Fan, also a member of the Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of the bank, is being investigated by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) for suspected severe violations of disciplines and laws, the CCDI and the NSC said in the statement.

Fan, born in 1964, became the vice governor of the PBC in February 2015, according to the central bank’s official website. Prior to that Fan has multiple years’ of experience working for China Construction Bank. 

Fan, as vice governor of the PBC, is mainly in charge of payment, financial technology and other fields, the Securities Times reported. During his tenure as vice governor of the PBC, Fan has made many public speeches on topics such as the digital yuan, payment regulation and fintech.

Prior to being investigated, Fan has recently attended the opening ceremony of the Second Yangtze River Delta Digital Finance Industry Innovation Week and China (Beijing) Digital Fintech Forum 2022 in September, and made public speeches, Jiemian.com reported.

The investigation into Fan comes as China has stepped up the anti-corruption campaign, including in the financial sector.

The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC stated that corruption is a cancer to the vitality and ability of the Party, thus it is important to prevent officials from acting as proxies of interest and power groups, Wang Jianxin, director of the Publicity Department of CCDI and the NSC, said at a press conference in October.