Overseas briefs: China tightens grip on banking, pay limits prompt Chinese bank exodus, Canada's ban 14 April 2015 2:50PM Banking Day staff China is strengthening control over its three major policy banks, reinforcing their role as a financing tool of the government. Dow Jones Newswires reports that the State Council (China's cabinet) on Sunday released approvals for reform plans at China Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of China and Agricultural Development Bank of China. The plans seek to reverse an increasingly commercialised strategy pursued by at least two of these banks, according to government advisers and analysts. Many senior executives have resigned from China's state-owned banks to join joint-stock banks or private banks, which pay much better. Guangzhou's Time Weekly reports that Zhan Weijian, chief credit risk officer with Bank of China and the highest paid executive at any of the nation's listed banks, recently resigned, while Zhu Tao, chief of the bank's Suzhou branch, left the bank to become president of the newly established Shanghai Huarui Bank. Beijing has imposed limits on the salaries of senior executives of the country's five major state-owned banks, setting a ceiling of annual pay of around 600,000 yuan (US$97,000) each for the five bank chairs, presidents, vice presidents and chairs of the supervisory boards. Canada's new bank chief executives are making less money than their predecessors as banks cut salaries in the face of shareholder pressure to curb supersized executive pay. The Globe and Mail reports a survey on bank CEO pay by Toronto compensation consulting firm McDowall Associates. This shows base salaries for the new CEOs of Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto-Dominion Bank are all down 33 per cent compared with the outgoing CEOs' salaries, while the base salary for the new CEO of Royal Bank of Canada is down 13 per cent compared with his predecessor. India's Bharatiya Mahila Bank, which was formed with a vision of economic empowerment for women, said it was targeting 150 branches across the country by the end of the year. More than ten per cent of the bank's customers are women.