China Great Wall Asset Management, one of the “bad banks” set up a decade ago to clean up non-performing loans in the Chinese banking system, has established a life assurance joint venture with Nippon Life Insurance, Japan’s largest life assurer by assets.

The move is part of a strategy of diversification by Great Wall and the other three state-owned bad banks. They are all trying to become financial conglomerates in their own right rather than just clearing houses for the failed loans made by state lenders such as China Construction Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.