On March 21, 2019, Huaxia Bank organized a wonderful lecture on rule of law. Zhou Junli, a management committee member and a senior partner of ZhongYin Law Firm, was invited to lecture on a specific topic, namely “Prevention of Legal Risks of Criminal Offences in Banking Industry”. Nearly 100 employees of the head office of Huaxia Bank listened to this lecture on site, and this lecture was shared with nearly 1,000 employees of all of its branches across the country through synchronous and live web-broadcast.

In this lecture, based on the special legal nature, legal status and working environment of commercial banks, Zhou Junli analyzed and described the current situation of criminal legal risks in banking, their causes and social influence, and explained in detail various common crimes in banking stipulated in China's criminal code, such as the crime of illegally granting loans, the crime of absorbing clients’ funds without crediting into appropriate account, the crime of incompliantly issuing financial bill, the crime of loan fraud, the crime of bill fraud, the crime of obtaining loan by deception, the crime of accepting bribe by nongovernment employee, and the crime of fund misappropriation.

Zhou Junli also cited a large number of current hot criminal cases in the banking industry, and by combining her rich experience in criminal defense practice, expounded in a simple way the criminal legal risks that bank staff should pay attention to in their daily work, and proposed corresponding prevention measures. The content of the lecture was thought-provoking and received applause and praise from the participants.

Zhou Junli suggested that the people present should by studying criminal law, raise their awareness of prevention, and consciously resist all kinds of temptations, so as to stay away from crime. She pointed out that compliant operation was an inherent requirement for a bank's stable functioning and a responsibility that bank staff must perform, and that bank staff should enhance their awareness of compliance, never go beyond the bottom line of compliance work, and provide services in strict accordance with rules and regulations and operational procedures, so as to reduce the risk of criminal offences.

This lecture is a successful and meaningful course of legal knowledge. Through this lecture, Huaxia Bank staff have deepened their understanding of relevant financial crimes and duty crimes, raised their awareness of business operation risks, and it will play an important role in consolidating the bottom line for risk prevention and control, preventing and mitigating financial risks, improving the business environment, and so on.