A Dirty Trade between University and Bank

Xidian University in Xi’an, capital city of northwest China’s Shaanxi province, is seen in this undated photo. [Photo: CNR.cn]

Nearly 10,000 students in Xidian University of northwest China’s Shaanxi province have surprisingly found that their private ID informations were usurped by their university in trading a local bank for loans, China National Radio (CNR) reports.

The sneak trade was not exposed until one of the university’s student tried one day in early December to open his first ever online banking account, which was unexpectedly denied by a local Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) branch, saying he had already had an online banking account and a credit card under his name.

The bad news swirled around the school campus following the dirty trade’s exposure online. Many other students tried similar inquires with the ICBC branch and were told they all have got similar credit cards under their own names, although they’ve never had any idea of such a business that is supposed to have their own consent and signatures.

According to a fact-finding interview by a CNR reporter, a self-proclaimed financial chief of Xidian University admitted the massive credit cards registration was planned by the university with the ICBC branch.

He confessed the deal was in response to the bank’s financial support of the university’s expansion project, arguing, “it was reasonable to pay back the bank by registering a large number of credit cards.”

Credit card registrations in China require applications with detailed private information and signatures, none of which the students provided, and of course are deemed as illegal by China’s Law on Personal Identity Cards.

An ICBC branch official in charge of credit card services recalled their so-called “cooperation” with Xidian. They said the collective registration of credit cards was provided by the university, indicating the signatures were also “handled” by Xidian.

But an insider of the bank also revealed that such a mass registration of credit cards normally kickbacks to the applicant a certain amount of commission for each card, ranging from ten and thirty yuan.

The “financial chief” of Xidian, who was involved in the underground trade, however, promised to “apologize to all the students involved”. But he considered the business as “of low cost and zero risk”.

Qiang Jianzhou, head of the school’s publicity department and also another who was involved in the deal, threatened the CNR journalist while being interviewed that they will publish notices on tianya.cn, a popular online forum in China, to “occupy” media channels to curb the spreading of the scandal.

He also threatened to detain the journalist when the interview finished, yelling “I will make news nationwide!”

The bank anyhow told the reporter the credit card registration has been cancelled, yet insisted it has not violated regulations for credit card registration.

A girl walks past a booth advertising credit cards on campus in this undated photo. [Photo: CNR.cn]