On November 28, the Financial Association reported (Reporter Peng Kofeng) that the periodic reports disclosed by listed banks should be more cautious and serious.

On November 28, the Bank of Xi'an announced that there was an error in its third quarter report for 2024. The 'cash outflow from operating activities' item in the cash flow statement mistakenly listed part of the amount under the sub-item 'cash paid to employees and cash paid for employees', which was incorrectly shown in the sub-item 'cash paid for other operating activities'. The company has corrected this and apologized.

Reporters from the Financial Association found that this year, more than a dozen listed companies, including Qiming Information Technology and Beijing Supermap Software, received regulatory letters from the exchange due to errors in their periodic reports (annual or quarterly reports). In addition, there were also errors in the annual report data of Jiangxi Bank, which were later corrected.

The incorrect data in the third quarter report of the Bank of Xi'an led to public controversy, and the bank issued an apology.

The Bank of Xi'an announced today that it disclosed the 'Bank of Xi'an Co., Ltd. Third Quarter Report for 2024' on October 31, 2024. After the company re-examined, it was found that the amount in the cash flow statement under the sub-item 'cash paid to employees and cash paid for employees' was incorrectly listed under the sub-item 'cash paid for other operating activities'. The relevant content has now been corrected.

According to the announcement, in the previous third quarter report of the Bank of Xi'an, the item 'cash paid for other operating activities' showed 0.556 billion yuan; after correction, the data is 0.829 billion yuan.

The Bank of Xi'an also stated that, apart from the corrections mentioned above, the other contents of the third quarter report for 2024 remain unchanged. The corrected items are all classified under 'cash outflows from operating activities', which do not affect the 'net cash flow from operating activities' in the consolidated and parent company's cash flow statement and do not impact the company's financial status, operating performance, or the balance sheet and income statement of the consolidated and parent company.

The bank of xi'an expressed deep apologies for the inconvenience caused to investors due to further strengthening of financial information review and requests understanding from investors.

It is worth noting that the bank of xi'an did not correct its third-quarter report previously, and the related data once sparked public outcry.

At that time, the financial report information showed that as of the end of September, the 'cash paid to employees and cash paid on behalf of employees' by the bank of xi'an was 0.556 billion yuan, while at the end of the second quarter, this amount was 0.587 billion yuan. Thus, the relevant amount had not only failed to increase at the end of the third quarter but had actually decreased by 31 million yuan compared to the end of the second quarter.

The reporter from the financial news agency noted that after this correction, as of the end of September, the 'cash paid to employees and cash paid on behalf of employees' by the bank of xi'an was 0.829 billion yuan. Compared to the data of 0.587 billion yuan from the first half of the year, this indicates that the relevant expenses of the bank of xi'an increased by approximately 0.242 billion yuan in the third quarter.

An industry analyst from a brokerage stated to the financial news agency reporters that the accuracy of the data in the banks' public reports is closely related to the regulation by financial authorities and public trust in financial institutions. Listed banks should conduct more reviews before releasing public reports to prevent such low-level mistakes.

This year, multiple listed companies have received regulatory letters due to incorrect report data, with similar incidents occurring at banks previously.

The financial news agency reporters found that it is not uncommon for listed companies to have errors in the data and inaccuracies in wording in their publicly disclosed annual, semi-annual, and quarterly reports. Based on public information, about 10 listed companies have received regulatory letters from regulators this year due to this issue.

In April of this year, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange sent a regulatory letter to qiming information and relevant responsible persons. The reason was that due to staff negligence, there were errors in the disclosure of cash dividend amounts and total cash dividends (including other methods) in qiming information's annual report concerning the company's profit distribution and the transfer of capital reserves to share capital, necessitating a supplementary correction of the relevant content.

In April, Beijing Supermap Software received a supervision letter. The reason was due to staff negligence, which led to incorrect disclosure of information regarding the annual profit distribution and other sections in the "2023 Annual Report." Zhejiang Crystal-optech also received a supervision letter, as the total assets at the end of the previous year and the equity attributable to shareholders disclosed in the company's first quarter report for 2024 were incorrectly filled with values from the same period last year. Cloud Live Technology Group received a supervision letter due to errors in disclosing important accounting data and financial indicators in the company's "2023 Annual Report Summary" and "2024 First Quarter Report" (including incorrect disclosures of the equity attributable to shareholders at the end of 2023 and the end of the first quarter of 2024 as 25,332,638.26 yuan, 17,067,726.58 yuan, mistakenly reported as -24,667,361.74 yuan, -32,932,273.42 yuan, etc.).

From the perspective of the banking industry, the occurrence of data errors in public reports is rare, with the main issue being errors in data units.

According to public reports, in June 2019, Jiangxi Bank issued a correction announcement stating that the "net capital, risk-weighted assets," and other data units disclosed in the quarterly report were incorrect. The truth was that most of the data units in the bank's first quarter report were written as "ten thousands" instead of "hundred millions."

Earlier, the Bank of Hangzhou also experienced similar errors during its IPO. The summary of the prospectus for the Bank of Hangzhou's initial public offering, released in September 2016, indicated that the total amount of funds expected to be raised was "376658.25 yuan," and the net amount expected to be raised was "361056.2 yuan." But in reality, these two data points contained errors. In early October of that year, the Bank of Hangzhou corrected these two figures to "3766.5825 million yuan" and "3610.562 million yuan" and reissued the summary of the prospectus.

According to reporters from Caixin News, most listed banks have established corresponding rules for "accountability for significant errors in annual report disclosures." For example, in October last year, Lanzhou Bank publicly released the "Major Error Responsibility Accountability System for Annual Report Information Disclosure," which clarifies that the bank's directors, supervisors, senior management, shareholders holding more than 5%, departments responsible for providing annual report information, branch managers, and those involved in the annual report information disclosure are all subjects applicable to this system.