Impact of Banking Information Systems Security on Banking in China
Keith L. Hood, Yang Jie-wen · Journal of Global Information Management · 1998
This paper focuses on information security in Chinese Banking Information Systems (BIS), which can only be understood in the context of the wider reforms of the Chinese banking sector. A small pilot study of banking in Shenzhen was carried out. Shenzhen, in southern China, is one of the Economic Special Zones and may be considered as being at the leading edge of development in banking and a pointer towards future developments of banking in China. Information security was found to be inadequate in the banking sector. If security is seen primarily as a human, rather than a technical issue (Williams and Hitchings 1991) this result could have been anticipated in the rush to install the technology to support the new banking services. It was seen as a reflection of the poor appreciation by senior management of information security. The overall integrity of the banks did not seem to depend on BIS, however; it was the background of the people controlling the banks that was of more concern. The residual influence of the (communist) party and the state, inappropriate in a non-command economy, appears to have been responsible for some poor lending decisions, resulting in loans which may never be recovered.Request access from your librarian to read this article's full text.