BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese banks discovered 2,500 cases involving fake ID cards in less than a month with the help of a verification network that enables the police to share its database with the country's banking outlets, said the People's Bank of China on Thursday.

    The network has uncovered 230 criminal cases from 32 million deals and blocked 100,000 people from making transactions since it was established on June 29 to improve China's real-name bank account system.

    The central bank and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) will provide all the bank outlets in the country with access to the network as soon as possible, with every outlet having at least one computer used for verification, said Su Ning, vice governor of the central bank.

    "The network aims to protect the banking system from those who attempt to open a bank account with a fake ID card and rid the banks of all anonymous accounts," said Su.

    An MPS spokesman said the ministry's demographic database has had 1.3 billion entries - including Chinese citizens' names, ID card numbers and photos. "All these will provide the banks with accurate information for identity verification," he added.

    From April 2000, Chinese people have been required to present their ID cards when opening bank accounts.

    The government issued regulations on the real-name bank account system earlier that year in order to protect customers' interests and improve credit management.