Editing People's Bank of China (section)

===Early reform era===
The institutional demotion of the PBC was reversed in March 1978 as it was separated from the Finance Ministry and granted ministerial ranking.{{R|BellFeng|p=62}}

By then and with the exception of special allocations for rural development, the monolithic PBC dominated all business transactions and credit. In 1979, China initiated a transition from that [[single-tier banking system]] to a two-tier system, which was largely completed by 1984.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|pages=188–189}} In March 1979, as part of the [[Chinese economic reform]]s, the State Council split off state-owned banks from the PBC, first the [[Agricultural Bank of China]] (ABC) and the [[Bank of China]] (BOC). The [[People's Construction Bank of China]], which had been run separately under the Ministry of Finance, was also made autonomous (and later renamed [[China Construction Bank]] in 1986). In January 1984, the PBC's own commercial banking operations were spun off as the [[Industrial and Commercial Bank of China]] (ICBC).{{R|BellFeng|p=63}}<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=450}} In September 1983, the State Council had promulgated that the PBC would function exclusively as the central bank of China and no longer undertake commercial banking activities.<ref name=":32" />{{Rp|page=42}}

Modernization efforts continued in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1990, the PBC moved into its new head office building, prominently located on [[West Chang'an Avenue]].<ref name=Yu>{{cite book |title=Chang'An Avenue and the Modernization of Chinese Architecture |author=Shuishan Yu|location=Seattle and London |publisher=University of Washington Press |date=2012 |url=http://www.e-library.upj.ac.id:99/slims/e-books/index.php?p=fstream-pdf&fid=2728&bid=1416}}</ref>{{rp|47}} In 1991, Vice Governor [[Chen Yuan]] spearheaded the creation of the Electronic Interbank System (EIS), the PBC's first state-of-the-art [[financial market infrastructure]].{{R|BellFeng|p=285}} In 1992, however, the PBC had to reluctantly concede the spinning off of its securities regulatory duties to the newly established [[China Securities Regulatory Commission]],{{R|BellFeng|p=149}} whose first chair was former PBC vice governor [[Liu Hongru]].

The bank's profile was greatly raised by the appointment of [[Zhu Rongji]] as its governor in 1993, simultaneously as his role as [[Vice Premier of China|Vice Premier]] in charge of economic and financial affairs.{{R|BellFeng|p=125}}. Its central bank status was legally confirmed on March 18, 1995, by the 3rd Plenum of the [[8th National People's Congress]], and was granted a higher degree of autonomy than other State Council ministries by an act that year.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last1=Chiu |first1=Becky |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-GTCsC6AqVUC&pg=PA203 |title=Reforming China's State-owned Enterprises and Banks |last2=Lewis |first2=Mervyn |date=2006-01-01 |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing |isbn=978-1-84542-988-1 |pages= |language=en |access-date=June 12, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231225171546/https://books.google.com/books?id=-GTCsC6AqVUC&pg=PA203#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=December 25, 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=203}} In 1996 and 1996, the PBC established fundamental regulations on loans and consumer credit.<ref name=":44">{{Cite book |last=Brussee |first=Vincent |title=Social Credit: The Warring States of China's Emerging Data Empire |publisher=[[Palgrave MacMillan]] |year=2023 |isbn=9789819921881 |location=Singapore |doi=10.1007/978-981-99-2189-8}}</ref>{{Rp|page=20}}

In 1998, the PBC underwent a major restructuring. All provincial and local branches were abolished, and the PBC opened nine regional branches, whose boundaries did not correspond to local administrative boundaries.<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Wei |first=Lingling |author-link=Lingling Wei |date=2023-03-12 |title=Xi Jinping Brings China's Reform Era to an End |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinping-brings-chinas-reform-era-to-an-end-610b9186 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230829101600/https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinping-brings-chinas-reform-era-to-an-end-610b9186 |archive-date=August 29, 2023 |access-date=2023-09-03 |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |language=en-US |issn=0099-9660}}</ref> The nine branches were located in [[Chengdu]], [[Guangzhou]], [[Jinan]], [[Nanjing]], [[Shanghai]], [[Shenyang]], [[Tianjin]], [[Wuhan]], and [[Xi'an]], complemented by a sub-provincial network of city-level and county-level sub-branches.{{R|BellFeng|p=144}} That same year, the so-called credit plan, a key feature of China's former state planning process, was finally abandoned, allowing the PBC to play a genuine role as monetary policy authority.{{R|BellFeng|p=99}}