Anhui to repay rural bank scam victims

Finance authorities in East China's Anhui province will start repaying the victims of a local rural bank scam on Friday, as depositors have been unable to access their funds.

Depositors of the Guzhen New River Huai Village & Township Bank, based in Guzhen county of Bengbu, will be repaid "in advance", the Bengbu Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and Bengbu Financial Supervision Commission said in a joint notice online to victims on Monday night.

Based on the progress of the investigation and the amount of capital and assets retrieved by the police, the local finance-related authorities said they would arrange the handing out of advance payments for customers with combined deposits of 50,000 yuan ($7,430) or less starting Friday.

Those with more deposits will be subject to further arrangements. The repayment will be conducted by the Bengbu branch of the State-owned Agricultural Bank of China.

The banking regulators said they won't make repayments for accounts suspected to have been involved with illegal activities or received high interest from other channels, according to the notice.

Public information on the Guzhen bank shows it is owned by the Xuchang Rural Commercial Bank, based in Xuchang of neighboring Henan province.

A similar repayment notice was also issued by the Henan provincial regulators on Monday, saying the repayment to start on Friday will be conducted by the State-owned Henan Rural Credit Union.

It was previously reported some rural banks in Henan allegedly lured customers in with much higher deposit interest rates than those provided by State-owned banks.

From April, the banks have prevented customers from accessing their funds, which has quickly aroused outrage, according to previous media reports.

The scam involved four banks in Henan's Kaifeng city, county-level Yuzhou city, Shangcai and Zhecheng counties.

A preliminary investigation has found the online transaction systems of some rural banks in Henan had been manipulated and illegally used by a local finance company, provincial banking regulators recently said.