Foreign exchange and public security authorities have broken up a Shenzhen underground bank that was doing business nationwide, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said yesterday.

The bank provided illegal funding for its clients to invest in the stock and property markets as well as other businesses.

The funds could amount to tens of billions of yuan, according to a statement on the SAFE's website.

Some major State enterprises were also involved in the illegal deals, the SAFE said, without naming them.

As the domestic stock and property markets continue to boom, analysts said many enterprises, including some major State firms, have ploughed money into the markets for quick profit.

Last week, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said the China Shipping (Group) Company and the China Nuclear Engineering and Construction (Group) Corporation had used bank loans to invest in the stock and property market respectively. The SASAC discovered the irregularities in its performance appraisal of 150 central State enterprises under its control.

The foreign exchange regulator has stepped up its efforts to crack down on illegal funding and has conducted nationwide checks to prevent foreign speculative capital, or hot money, coming into the country to push up domestic asset prices.

"Some of the funds of underground banks may have come from overseas in the form of speculative money," Li Zhikun, analyst with the China Jianyin Investment Securities, told China Daily.

The SAFE said 55 accounts had been frozen in the Shenzhen raid, involving 4.2 million yuan ($556,000).

The bank, however, had conducted transactions totaling 4.3 billion yuan in its seven years of operation.

Six people have been detained, including the boss of the bank, surnamed Du, the SAFE said.

Du's clients were from all 31 provinces and regions of the country. The bank's major clients were from the coastal provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

(China Daily 08/07/2007 page4)