In 2005, the system was expanded gradually to the whole country to cover 16 state-owned commercial banks nationwide in June, and cover 115 city commercial banks in August. At the moment, 12 provincial associations of rural credit cooperatives, 55 municipal associations of rural credit cooperatives and 56 urban credit cooperatives are covered by the system.
To be sure, some academics – mostly finance professors – and a few intrepid, heterodox voices among central bank research staffs identified risks that might be building and, in general terms, the need for macroprudential regulation to complement traditional microprudential oversight. But even they tended more to diagnosis and warning than to prescription.