Liu Jin has resigned as the vice-chairman and president of China's largest global bank, in a surprise move five months after his reappointment to the lender's top executive job.

Liu resigned for "personal reasons" from Bank of China, effective August 25, the state-owned bank said in a Sunday filing to the stock exchange, without elaborating. The bank's Beijing spokespeople declined to comment.

The move came as a surprise as Liu, born in 1967, has yet to reach the official retirement age of 60 years for China's public servants and employees of state-owned companies.

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Bank of China's history can be traced to 1905 when it was established as the Da Qing Bank under imperial rule. The bank was renamed after the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchu's imperial rule.

Liu is a career banker, joining the bank as president in April 2021, and was appointed vice-chairman in June 2021. Before the Bank of China, he held various positions at state-owned China Everbright Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), and China Development Bank.

Ge Haijiao, BoC's chairman and party secretary, will serve as acting president until a new president is appointed, the bank said in a separate announcement on Sunday. Ge has been the chairman, non-executive director, and chairman of the strategy and budget committee of the bank's Hong Kong and mainland branches since April 2023.

Before Liu resigned, he had missed the bank's August 19 board meeting, chaired by Ge, where the bank announced plans to switch its auditor for the year from PwC China to rival EY. PwC's mainland China branch is facing a six-month ban by Chinese authorities and potentially a large fine as punishment for its involvement in the financial fraud of the now-liquidated developer China Evergrande Group.

According to the bank's 2023 annual report, Liu missed two out of the 13 board meetings that Bank of China held throughout last year.

The former president's resignation followed the departure of Liu Liange, the former party chief and chairman of the bank. Liu pleaded guilty in April to the charge of accepting more than 121 million yuan (US$17 million) in bribes and illegally issuing loans worth 3.3 billion yuan. The 62-year-old stepped down from his positions in March 2023.

China launched a new round of anti-corruption inspections by Chinese authorities in April, targeting some of the country's largest state-owned banks, including ICBC and BOC, as well as financial regulators, such as the ministry of finance and the China securities regulatory Commission.

Bank of China's shares retraced 0.9 per cent to 7 yuan in Shanghai, rising 0.3 per cent to HK$3.58 at the noon trading pause in Hong Kong.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright ? 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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