With a pedigree equal parts financial and apparatchik, Wang served as anti-graft chief of China's central bank for the last eight years, the No. 2 leader behind Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, according to the People's Bank of China website.

He joins CCB (>> China Construction Bank Corporation) as part of a wider leadership reshuffle this year that will culminate with President Hu Jintao's retirement.

"Wang is one of the old guns in modern banking in China, and he should have no difficulty in running CCB," Xia Bin, an adviser to the central People's Bank of China, told Reuters.

Wang's central bank duties were to ensure its 100,000 cadres, including those in local branches around the country, toed the Communist Party line and steered clear of corruption and decadent lifestyles.

As CCB chairman, Wang has an even more daunting task: running China's second biggest lender and one of the world's biggest banks, with 300,000 employees and 1.2 million investors.

"He is quite good at getting along well with both leaders and subordinates," a former colleague of Wang, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

TESTED ROUTE

Many powerful figures in China's financial industry have cut their teeth at CCB.

Wang Qishan, the vice premier in charge of China's banking system, headed the bank from 1994 to 1997. Zhou Xiaochuan, the current central bank governor, was its chief from 1998 to 2000.

Most recently, Wang's predecessor, Guo Shuqing, was named as the chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission in late 2011.

But the bank also has been touched by scandal. Zhang Enzhao, the China Construction chairman before Guo, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2005 for taking 4 million yuan ($627,500) in bribes.

That could help explain the appeal of a candidate with Wang's background as an anticorruption enforcer.

"Wang has been engaged in auditing and anti-corruption, and he should have a deep understanding of risks," Xia said.

According to his official biography, Wang joined the central bank in 1978 when it was the only lender in China and a cashier for China's public finance.

In 1984 when China decided to create separate commercial banks, Wang joined the newly created Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (>> Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) and climbed the career ladder to become the general manager of the head office.

Most of Wang's public speeches in recent years have been about Communist Party ideology and dwell little on monetary policy making nor commercial banking.

However during his short stint as the Sichuan branch head of the central bank in 2000, Wang published a forward-looking article calling on banks to lend more to small businesses.

These days China Construction and other Chinese banks are being urged by Beijing to increase lending to small businesses, which are vital for jobs and social security in the world's second largest economy, but have suffered under an enduring credit crunch.

($1 = 6.3750 Chinese yuan)

(Additional reporting by Kelvin Soh; Editing by Brian Rhoads and David Cowell)

By Zhou Xin and Don Durfee