Organized crime syndicates are colluding with well-placed staff at financial institutions to swindle unsuspecting people out of their money, a senior court official has warned.

Criminals are grooming insiders to help them get access to customers' banking and financial details, such as their passwords, account information and credit card details, Xiong Xuanguo, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, said.

And this type of collusion appears to be on the rise, he said.

"This type of collusion with staff at financial institutions is becoming very popular," Xiong said.

"Very often high-ranking bank officials participate."

Xiong was speaking over the weekend at a seminar sponsored by Renmin University of China on financial crimes and globalization.

The criminals use confidential customer information to fraudulently obtain mortgages and car loans, which they have no intention of repaying, he said.

Banking insiders are often lured by the promise of a cut of the stolen proceeds.

In April, Fu Shifeng, a former provincial president of the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), went on trial on corruption charges.

Fu, 66, is accused of accepting a bribe of HK$300,000 (US$38,500) to illegally approve an 18-million-yuan (US$2.4 million) loan to a real estate company in Zhongshan city in 1994 while he was president of the ABC Guangdong branch.

The trial is ongoing.

Meanwhile, the number of financial crimes involving multinational corporations is also increasing, Xiong said.

By definition under Chinese law, financial crimes can refer to either the disruption of financial order or financial fraud.

"In the past five years crimes involving disrupting financial order have declined, but financial fraud cases are on the increase," Xiong said.

He said the courts have dealt with a "very big" number of financial cases involving hundreds of millions yuan.

Xiong said that last year more than 43 percent of convicted financial criminals were given prison sentences of five years or more.

Officials agreed the country needs intensified supervision and legislation to help fight financial crime.

Liu Mingkang, president of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), said banks last year dismissed 243 senior managers involved in 1,085 serious cases of graft, embezzlement and malpractice.

He earlier proposed the establishment of an integrated mechanism between banks and authorities to stop financial fraud.

This could involve educating staff from financial institutions of the potential consequences of getting involved in such crimes.

Another significant challenge for banks and authorities is the so-called "globalization" of financial crime, and how best to stop sophisticated international criminal networks from infiltrating Chinese banks.

Liu proposed more cohesive measures to enable Chinese banks to work more efficiently with foreign banking regulatory and anti-fraud departments to share information and conduct investigations on suspected illegal activities and accounts.

To date the CBRC has established cooperative memorandums in more than 22 countries including the United Kingdom.