Financial regulators in Central China's Henan Province and East China's Anhui Province on Thursday said they will start the second round of advance payments for depositors, who have reported difficulty in withdrawing money from local village banks, from July 25.

The clients of second round of advance payments will be people initially with combined deposits in the related banks of no more than 100,000 yuan (14,788) apiece, according to announcements by Henan Office and Anhui Office of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission on Thursday.

The first round of these returned funds targeted those with deposits totaled 50,000 yuan or less in a single bank, starting from July 15.

Four rural banks in Henan and one in Anhui were recently spotlighted in the village bank incidents, in which clients of the banks found that they could not withdraw their cash from April 18 this year.

An initial police probe on June 18 found that Henan New Wealth Group manipulated and utilized the online trading systems of four rural lenders.

After receiving the advance payment task, our bank organized professional technology companies to develop the advance payment system, and completed the design, testing, registration and other work in only half a month, according to a representative from the Henan Rural Credit Union on Thursday, a report by cls.cn, a domestic financial media outlet claimed.

"Since the advance payment scheme was officially started at 9 am on July 15, the system has been running safely and stably, and the advance payments have been progressing smoothly," the representative said.

Banks have basically paid back deposits of customers with combined assets of no more than 50,000 yuan, the individual claimed.

Global Times