January 23, 2008 (LPAC)--The China Banking and Regulatory Commission (CBRC) is setting up a task force to monitor the effects of the global financial crisis on the nation's top five banks, Xinhua reported. The CBRC will pay particular attention to the valuations of securities affected by the banking and securities crisis in the West. Professor Zhong Wei of the Beijing Normal University, warned that bad assets are rising in the Chinese banks as a result of the problems, and the Bank of China, the nation's biggest foreign-exchange bank, denied reports that it has taken sharp write-downs on its holdings of Western securities.