August 24, 2009

Zhang Jianguo heads China Construction Bank, one of China's 'Big Four'. He talks to Malcolm Moore about how a once dowdy state-run lender has transformed itself into the world's second largest bank.In China, bankers are not the objects of derision and anger that they have become in the West. But nor are they much liked.

Centuries of Confucian disdain for moneymen, followed by outright hostility under Chairman Mao's rule, has created a lingering frostiness towards the banking industry. Even in Shanghai, a city that has naked ambitions to turn itself into a financial centre to rival London and New York, bankers are seen as a necessary evil, especially since the financial crisis.