A new department to protect the interests of 72 million individual investors has been set up by the mainland's securities regulator, which is likely to roll out more policies to allow small players to seek compensation for losses resulting from market irregularities.
The new Investor Protection Bureau is responsible for policymaking and receiving complaints from individual investors, according to Xinhua.
The creation of the department came after the newly appointed chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Guo Shuqing, said that the regulator would intensify efforts to clean up the market.
China's retail investors have often been short-changed by dealers who take advantage of insider information to make a profit from equity investments.
Several listed firms were also found to have falsified earnings in the past two decades, a time that saw multi-billion-yuan losses by retail investors. .
The small investors could not be fully compensated for the losses because of the lack of an efficient legal system.
'Retail investors were easily hurt because they have little knowledge about the market and have no awareness of risks,' Xinhua said. 'Their access to information is limited and their investment skills are insufficient.'