Xiao Gang, the head of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), offered to resign last week, Reuters reported, citing unidentified people.
It wasn't clear whether the government had accepted his offer, Reuters said in the report on its website. A CSRC press officer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Xiao's term doesn't formally expire until the end of 2018, the news agency said. Xiao, 57, a former head of Bank of China Ltd, assumed his post as chairman of the CSRC in March 2013, and has overseen a period of rapid boom-to-bust cycles in the nation's stock market since mid-2014. In an internal meeting held on Saturday, he acknowledged loopholes and ineptitude within the regulatory system following a review of the turmoil in China's markets, according to a transcript posted on the agency's website.
China's stock market entered a bear market last week, with losses this year fueled by a controversial circuit-breaker system.
