China Minsheng Banking Corp Ltd is having a reform on its corporate governance model by integrating its corporate banking business, the mid-sized Chinese commercial lender said on Thursday.

The bank is striving to establish a department of corporate and investment banking to fully integrate its corporate banking business functions that were scattered in different departments and branches.

Shi Jie, assistant president of the bank, said at a press conference in Beijing, "such a reform will help us solve the problems of segmented systems, decentralized management, and weak coordination of corporate banking. By stimulating the vitality of our corporate banking business, the reform will push forward its healthy and sustainable development."

The reform is taking place while China goes through an economic downturn.

"During the process of industry reshuffling and business transformation, clients raised requirements for commercial banks on risk identification and business models, so the banks must pool their resources together for precision marketing to achieve professional end-to-end services," Shi said.

China Minsheng Bank plans to complete the reform, which was launched in August, within three years and switch to a client-centered business model.

Gong Zhijian, general manager of the bank's development and planning department, said, "our new department of corporate and investment banking will have a complete value chain covering all our corporate clients. It will centralize market planning, risk management and resource allocation for all our branches nationwide."

Gong adds that the bank will create a basic framework for the new department at the headquarters and the branch levels by the end of this year.