CITIC Securities Co., China’s biggest securities company by market value, has fined its chairman for criticizing in public the country’s largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), according to a company memo.

    Wang Dongming, chairman of Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed CITIC Securities, told a banking conference in Beijing on Saturday that ICBC’s strong profits often anger its clients.

    His remarks, which were widely circulated via online video, came as Wang drew a contrast between Chinese financial institutions’ big profits and what customers often criticize as their low level of service.

    “Some people say, when Industrial and Commercial Bank of China reports two or three hundred billion yuan in after-tax profit, people around the country will curse,” Wang said.

    In the internal memo, CITIC Securities said it had fined Wang two months’ salary.

    “In circulating this notice, [the company] warns everyone to be cautious in making comments in public forums and to pay special attention that our clients’ interests and feelings are not harmed,” the notice said.

    Wang earned 5.83 million yuan (US$935,900) in salary last year, according to public filings. If the salary remained unchanged, he would be fined about 972,000 yuan.

    Sources familiar with CITIC Securities confirmed the statement, adding that ICBC was an important and valued client of CITIC Securities.

    ICBC’s first-quarter net profit rose 6.75 percent year on year to 73.46 billion yuan, while CITIC Securities’ net profit rose 34 percent to 1.3 billion yuan — just 1.8 percent of ICBC’s.

    Bank profits have in the past become a flashpoint in China, as State-owned banks like ICBC benefit from interest-rate controls that guarantee them healthy lending margins.

    In 2012, then-Premier Wen Jiabao said China’s biggest banks “make profits far too easily” because “a small number of major banks occupy a monopoly position.”

    (SD-Agencies)