Since 2026, the number and intensity of banking regulatory fines have shown a dual escalation trend.

According to data from the Enterprise Warning Platform, from January 1 to May 14, 2026, financial regulatory authorities issued over 2200 fines to the banking industry, an increase of over 100 fines compared to the same period in 2025. The amount of fines confiscated reached 815 million yuan, and more than 400 banks were fined. In the first half of 2025, the financial regulatory authorities have issued over 2700 fines, with a total amount of 790 million yuan confiscated.

It is worth noting that the credit sector is still the "hardest hit area" for punishment, and the rise of data reporting and governance violations has become a new focus of attention.

Panoramic view of fine

The penetrating power of regulation is continuously increasing and increasingly internalized as a "new normal" that the banking industry must face in its daily operations.

From the comparison of historical data, according to the Enterprise Early Warning Platform, in 2024, financial regulatory agencies issued 6541 fines, with a total amount of 1.82 billion yuan confiscated, and 1036 banks were fined; The number of fines for the whole year of 2025 has increased to 6677, the amount of confiscated fines has risen to 2.662 billion yuan, and 1075 banks have been fined; As of May 14, 2026, the banking industry has issued 2247 fines during the year, with a total amount of 815 million yuan confiscated.

From the perspective of the types of banks that have been punished, the cost of violations varies among institutions of different sizes and types. Since 2026, state-owned large banks and rural commercial banks have been fined a total of over 200 million yuan each, making them the two types of institutions with the highest fines; Joint stock banks and city commercial banks were fined a total of over 100 million yuan each, while rural banks, credit cooperatives, and policy banks were fined a total of over 20 million yuan each.

Among the large fines of over 1 million yuan, rural commercial banks have become the key targets of punishment, among which Hangzhou United Bank received a fine of 10 million yuan in February 2026, which is particularly noteworthy. Due to major illegal and irregular behaviors such as inadequate loan management and inaccurate data reporting, the Zhejiang Financial Regulatory Bureau fined him 11.1 million yuan, which is also the first fine of 10 million yuan issued by the banking industry in 2026.

The large amount of fines imposed on state-owned banks is directly related to their large business scale and numerous branches. At the same time, regulatory authorities have stricter compliance standards and requirements for state-owned banks, and any omissions may be magnified and scrutinized. However, the fact that rural commercial banks have become "disaster stricken areas" has exposed the shortcomings of their internal governance.

Wang Pengbo, Chief Analyst of the Financial Industry at Broadcom Consulting, stated that the main reason for small and medium-sized institutions being fined is that these institutions are generally in a regional operating state with limited resource investment. While quickly responding to market changes, their compliance system and risk control capabilities have not been synchronized with business activities, resulting in continuous exposure to operational and regulatory risks.

This also reflects the imbalance between the assessment mechanism and risk control. Under performance pressure, some banks have set high growth targets for frontline business personnel, but the accompanying compliance training, system support, and process supervision have not been synchronized and followed up, resulting in repeated violations at different times and locations.

Data governance becomes the 'new focus'

Breaking down the cause of action structure of fines, reporters found that since 2026, credit business violations have remained a stubborn old problem, while new issues such as data governance are also becoming prominent.

In the past, credit business violations have long dominated and been the "hardest hit areas" for punishment. According to data from Enterprise Warning, since 2026, there have been a total of 1406 fines for credit business violations, accounting for the dominant position in the total number of fines. Compared with past data, the total number of penalty orders for credit business violations in 2024 reached 3992, which will decrease to 3182 in 2025.

Specifically, credit violations mainly include various situations such as failure to conduct due diligence in loan inspections, illegal processing and disbursement of loans, inaccurate classification of credit assets, illegal disposal or concealment of non-performing assets, violations in factoring financing business, and unauthorized approval of loans. These violations are supported by clear penalty data and are weak links in the current compliance management of the banking industry.

It is worth noting that many penalties appear to be related to credit, internal control, or asset quality issues, while the underlying ones often point to the management capabilities of data, processes, rules, and responsibility chains. In the context of penetrating supervision, financial regulatory authorities are not only concerned with whether the submission has been completed, but also with whether the data is authentic, the caliber is consistent, the source is traceable, the logic is verifiable, and the results reflect the essence of the business.

The number of fines for data reporting and governance violations also reflects the regulatory emphasis on data compliance. According to data from Enterprise Early Warning, from January 1 to May 14, 2026, a total of 328 bank fines were issued for data reporting and governance violations, almost equal to the 329 fines issued for the entire year of 2024.

In 2025, there were 459 fines for violations of data reporting and governance regulations for the whole year, which is higher than the number since the beginning of this year. However, based on the progress of the first five months, the regulatory crackdown on data compliance is further increasing in 2026.

In addition to precisely cracking down on various violations, since 2026, the financial regulatory authorities have continued to intensify their efforts in implementing the "dual penalty system". According to data from Enterprise Early Warning, from January 1 to May 14, 2026, a total of 4 people were disqualified from serving as directors, supervisors, and senior executives. For example, in April 2026, the Ji'an Financial Supervision Bureau publicly released punishment information, imposing a fine of 1.5 million yuan on Jiangxi Xingan Rural Commercial Bank for inflating loan scale, illegally increasing financing costs for small and micro enterprises, and inadequate loan management, and revoking the qualifications of relevant responsible persons as directors, supervisors, and senior executives for 2 years.

Not only banks, but the entire financial industry is strengthening the dual punishment system, which simultaneously punishes institutions and responsible persons. Wang Pengbo said that the main purpose of this punishment model is to promote the sinking of the responsibility chain to specific positions, encourage institutions to pay more attention to clear responsibilities and process tracking in internal management, and also force them to optimize accountability mechanisms, strengthen employee behavior management, and may accelerate the integration progress of compliance systems and business systems.