China securities regulator relaxes rules on margin trading

[SHANGHAI] China's securities regulator has relaxed rules on brokerages' margin trading businesses amid growing concerns about sharp falls in the country's stock markets, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

China Securities Regulatory Commission late on Wednesday said it would cancel a rule that said investors needed to make additional guarantees if the ratio of capital they borrowed from brokerages reached 130 per cent of warning levels.

Among other amendments that it made in the statement published on its website was that individual investors that held less than 500,000 yuan (S$109,051) of securities assets, which had been a minimum threshold for margin trading, could continue trading.

REUTERS