【英语中国】中国整顿表外贷款治标不治本

Special products with names like Plentiful Money and Treasure and Rise High and Make Returns with Ease are hawked by salespeople at the China Merchants Bank branch on the Avenue of Eternal Peace in central Beijing.

Many of these popular products are collections of bank loans and other assets that have been “informally securitised” through lightly regulated Chinese trust companies and repackaged into financial products that offer decent returns with little apparent risk.

Even products with promised annual returns of up to 11 per cent – far above the benchmark one-year bank deposit rate of 2.25 per cent – are “almost without risk and very safe”, according to one eager China Merchants salesman.

Much of the blame for the global financial crisis has been placed on unfettered financial innovation in developed markets and a lack of basic understanding of increasingly complex financial instruments.

While some in China have been unable to conceal their delight at the humbling of western economies, many have been carefully studying how to avoid a similar implosion in China's fragile financial system.

So the sudden emergence of a virtually unregulated market for “securitisation with Chinese characteristics” and off-balance sheet bank lending has created alarm among financial officials in Beijing.

From virtually nothing two years ago, the outstanding balance of these off- balance sheet loans had grown to more than Rmb2,300bn ($339bn) by the end of June, with more than Rmb1,300bn issued in just the first six months of this year.

This is not a huge number compared with the nearly Rmb45,000bn in total outstanding loans in China, but regulators are most concerned about the rapid proliferation of these products in recent months.

In June alone, 33 banks and 38 trust companies issued 568 such products with a total combined value of Rmb890bn, according to research and consulting company Use-trust.

That far exceeded the Rmb603.4bn official on- balance sheet total increase in new bank loans during the same period.

Early last month the China Banking Regulatory Commission imposed a temporary ban on the trust company products that allow banks to move loans off their balance sheets and evade strict government lending quotas.

Earlier this week the CBRC ordered banks to shift the Rmb2,300bn in off-balance sheet loans back on to their books, recalculate their capital adequacy ratios and increase provisioning to take account of the extra lending.

China's state-controlled banks are already in the process of raising an estimated Rmb350bn from share and bond sales to the state, existing investors and the public.

But analysts say some lenders may be forced to go back to the market for more once they have accounted for this off-balance sheet lending. That may be difficult as equity markets have been weighed down by the sheer volumes of money being raised by Chinese banks and the biggest subscriber to bank share sales has itself had to turn to bond markets to fund its purchases.

Central Huijin Investment, the domestic arm of China's sovereign wealth fund, which holds most of the government's majority stakes in Chinese banks, is planning to sell as much as Rmb190bn in bonds in the coming months to buy new bank shares, according to some reports.

But concerns about the health of the banking sector have been raised by the fact many of Huijin's bonds are likely to be bought by the banks themselves, thereby inflating the balance sheets of all institutions without introducing new funds into the system.

Analysts say as long as the banking sector is still controlled by the state this kind of exercise can probably continue.

In contrast, they say the rise of informal securitisation has serious implications for the wider economy.

Beijing has been trying to rein in credit growth after an unprecedented credit boom last year saw new loans double from a year earlier to Rmb9,600bn.

But if off-balance sheet securitised loans are taken into account total new lending in China in the first half of the year reached around Rmb5,900bn, or nearly 30 per cent more than the official figure of Rmb4,600bn.

This suggests the government's efforts to cool the economy have not been as effective as they seemed.

Another major concern is that many of the off-balance sheet loans appear to have gone to real estate developers, who are increasingly being denied regular bank loans as the government tries to cool the searing urban property market.

Credit Suisse estimates at least Rmb500bn in off- balance sheet loans have gone directly to property developers, compared with official bank loans of Rmb442bn to developers in the first half of the year.

In a research note Credit Suisse analyst Du Jinsong said he was concerned that Chinese developers' finances will be “squeezed significantly” in the second half of the year as they are forced to look elsewhere for finance. But some analysts are even more worried that unregulated securitisation and off-balance sheet lending will quickly resume as the banks and trust companies find ways around the regulator's latest rules.

That fear was backed up by salespeople at China Merchants Bank in downtown Beijing yesterday. They told one curious customer they expected a large number of real estate-linked trust products to hit the market “soon”.

中国招商银行(China Merchants Bank)长安街支行的销售人员们在推销一些名为“招银进宝”和“节节高升——安心回报”的特殊理财产品。

这些热销产品中，有不少是银信合作产品——中国监管宽松的信托公司将银行贷款及其它资产“非正式证券化”，重新打包为回报率高、而看上去没有什么风险的金融产品。

按照招行一位热心的销售人员的说法，即使是承诺年收益率高达11%——远高于2.25%的1年期定存基准利率——的产品，也“几乎没有风险，非常安全”。

人们一直将本轮全球金融危机的主要责任，归咎于发达市场不受约束的金融创新，以及人们对越来越复杂的金融工具缺乏基本认识。

尽管看到西方经济体威信扫地，中国有些人掩饰不住内心的喜悦，但也有许多人一直在悉心研究，如何避免中国脆弱的金融体系遭遇类似的崩盘。

因此，一个事实上未受监管的“具有中国特色的证券化”及表外银行贷款市场的突然兴起，引起了中央金融部门官员的警觉。

在截至今年6月底的短短两年内，这些表外贷款的未偿付余额，就从零激增至逾2.3万亿元人民币（合3390亿美元），仅今年上半年，就发放了逾1.3万亿元人民币。

与中国近45万亿元人民币的未偿还贷款总额相比，这并不算多，但最让监管部门担心的是：这些产品近几个月来正快速扩散。

根据研究咨询公司用益信托(Use-trust)的数据，仅6月份一个月，就有33家银行和38家信托公司推出了568种此类产品，总价值高达8900亿元人民币。

这一数字远高于同期6034亿元人民币的官方新增表内银行贷款总额。

上月初，中国银监会(CBRC)针对部分信托公司产品下达了临时禁令。通过此类产品，银行可以将贷款移出资产负债表，绕开政府严格的放贷额度规定。

上周初，银监会责令各银行将2.3万亿元人民币的表外贷款转回表内，重新计算其资本充足率，并针对额外放贷提高准备金比例。

中国各国有控股银行本来就在进行融资，计划通过向政府、现有投资者和公众发行股票和债券，筹集约3500亿元人民币的资金。

但分析师表示，一旦将表外贷款转入表内，一些银行可能会被迫重返资本市场，以寻求更多融资。这可能面临很大难度，因为中国各银行庞大的融资规模已经让股市不堪重负，而银行类股最大的认购者自己也不得不转向债券市场，为认购股票融资。

中国政府持有的中国各银行的多数股权，大部分由中国主权财富基金的国内分支——中央汇金投资有限责任公司（Central Huijin Investment，简称汇金公司）持有。一些报道称，汇金正计划在未来数月发售约1900亿元人民币的债券，以购入新的银行股票。

但汇金发行的许多债券可能会被银行买走，由此导致所有金融机构的资产负债表膨胀，同时却没有给系统注入新的资金。这种情况引发了人们对于银行业健康状况的担忧。

分析师表示，只要银行业仍由政府控制，此类行为就很有可能继续存在。

相比之下，他们表示，非正式证券化的兴起，将对更广泛的经济造成严重影响。

在去年空前的信贷热潮中，中国新增贷款较前一年增长一倍，至9.6万亿元人民币。此后，北京方面一直在设法遏制信贷增长。

但如果计入表外证券化贷款，中国今年上半年的新增贷款总额则为5.9万亿元人民币左右，比4.6万亿元的官方数据高出近30%。

这说明政府为经济降温的努力，并不像看起来的那样有效。

另一大担心是，许多表外贷款似乎都流到了房地产开发商手中——随着政府努力为狂热的城市房地产市场降温，开发商获得正常银行贷款的难度越来越大。

瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)估计，今年上半年，至少有5000亿元人民币的表外贷款直接贷给了开发商，而贷给开发商的官方银行贷款总额只有4420亿元人民币。

瑞信分析师杜劲松在一份研究报告中表示，他担心，在今年下半年，随着中国的开发商不得不寻求从别处融资，他们的财务状况将“受到重大挤压”。但一些分析师更担心的是，如果银行和信托公司找出办法，绕开银监会的最新规定，不受监管的证券化和表外放贷将很快卷土重来。

这种担心在招行销售人员的身上得到了印证。他们告诉一位爱打听的客户，估计“很快”会有大量与房地产挂钩的信托产品面市。

译者/何黎