Recently, screenshots circulating on Chinese social media Weibo showed that on December 14, 2023, the Office of the Central Audit Commission of China released a document titled "Urgent Rectification of Uneven High Salaries in the Securities and Fund Industry".

Incomplete screenshots of the documents show that in recent years, the securities and fund industry has received widespread attention to issues such as high salaries and excessively high salaries. Recently, an audit conducted a survey on the salary situation of 12 securities fund companies and found that the overall salary level in the securities fund industry is high. In 2022, these 12 companies paid a total of 47.034 billion yuan in salaries.

The securities and fund industry has always been a high-income industry in China, and like on Wall Street, young people in China take pride in entering this industry. But after a series of "flaunting wealth" incidents among practitioners in 2022, the high salaries in the securities and fund industry have attracted the attention of senior management.

At the beginning of 2022, the non bank chief analyst of Zhongtai Securities posted a payroll online: the total income from January to November 2021 was 2.2467 million yuan, and the total declared tax amount was 623200 yuan.

In July 2022, the wife of a 90s trader from another well-known securities firm, CICC, posted on social media platform Xiaohongshu proof of the trader's monthly income of over 80000 RMB, which sparked discussions throughout society.

In China, boasting about one's high income or affluent family life is becoming increasingly sensitive and can easily trigger social criticism, especially among employees of state-owned enterprises, which is a high-risk behavior.

The continuous flaunting of wealth by employees in the securities industry has sparked the determination of senior management to rectify. On November 24, 2023, the China Securities Investment Fund Industry Association revised and released the "Management Rules for Fund Practitioners", clarifying six requirements for prohibited behavior. The most concerning one is the prohibition of deviating from socialist core values, corrupting social norms, violating public order and good customs, extravagant display of wealth, materialism, hedonism, and extreme individualism.