USCIB joined a coalition of 31 trade associations from around the world urging the Chinese Communist Party to end banking regulations that require foreign technology companies to give source code and encryption keys to Beijing officials. The global business community has argued that the China Banking and Regulatory Commission guidelines discriminate against foreign providers of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and would effectively shut foreign firms out of  China’s banking sector.

In a letter sent to the Chinese Communist Party on April 13, USCIB and 30 other trade associations called on Chinese leaders to suspend the cyber banking guidelines and open up to stakeholder input.

“Sovereign interest in a secure and development-friendly cyber economy is best served, in any country, by policies that encourage competition and customer choice, both of which necessitate openness to non-indigenous technologies, as well as an ongoing dialogue between industry and government,” wrote USCIB and other associations in the letter. “Approaches that keep out certain technologies would likely render China’s affected industries slower to innovate, more costly to operate, and less capable of managing dynamic security threats leaving Chinese networks less secure.”

Officials from the U.S., the European Union and Japan have criticized the banking rules. U.S. officials say China is using cyber security as an excuse for protectionism.

UPDATE: China issued written notification on April 16, 2015 that it had temporarily suspended implementation of these regulations.