At a State Council Information Office press conference held on September 10 to outline financial-sector priorities under the "15th Five-Year Plan" (2026-2030), senior regulators detailed their strategy for strengthening China's financial system.

The deputy head of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, Cong Lin, emphasized that during the upcoming planning period, the focus will be on stabilizing the broader landscape while adopting a classified, well-sequenced and proactive approach to risk mitigation across key sectors. This includes a firm commitment to methodically prevent and resolve risks tied to regional and smaller financial institutions. The explicit goal, he stressed, is to firmly preserve the bottom line of preventing any individual institution from defaulting or "exploding."

Cong further noted that the sector will pursue a path of reducing the total number of smaller regional banks while enhancing their quality and optimizing their overall footprint, ensuring a more resilient and efficient financial ecosystem.

"We will coordinate the safety of the overall situation, implement category-specific measures, and execute precise resolution tactics. This will allow us to push forward with risk prevention in key areas, achieve orderly and effective de-risking of local and mid-to-small financial entities, and firmly maintain the red line of no individual failures," he remarked during the briefing.