A CHINESE bank has confirmed it had dozens of shareholders below the age of 18, including a 10-year-old, drawing questions and criticism from financial experts and Internet users, Chinese media reported yesterday.

Bank of Beijing, which began trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in September, said the 84 investors were legal shareholders, who maintained the shares through the bank's restructuring in 1996 and capital increase in 2004, the semi-official China News Centre said, citing a Beijing newspaper.

Among them, 35 people owned more than 100,000 shares, and one was as young as 10. The child became a shareholder when he was one, and now is the bank's 13th-largest shareholder, with some 1.3 million shares in the bank, a Xi'an newspaper reported.

"The bank noticed the situation when checking shareholders, but under the relevant laws, regulations or other directives, there is no ban or restriction for people below the age of 18 holding shares," the bank was quoted as saying.

But legal and financial experts had said it was abnormal for a listed company to have so many under-aged shareholders, and the bank should expose information about their guardians.

It was not clear whether some guardians might try to gain financial or tax benefits by shifting some family assets to the young shareholders' accounts.