Wealth Managers Flourish in Regulatory Vacuum

Financial regulators have turned a wary eye toward increasingly popular, third-party wealth management firms in China, including a company that raised about US$ 1 billion one year ago on the New York Stock Exchange.

Yet the skepticism expressed by officials at the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) and other watchdog agencies has gone no farther than that. No one in the government to date has proposed specific controls for these up-and-coming wealth management firms, nor have any proposals appeared on the horizon.