【英语财经】银行业是否处于穷途末路？ Lenders struggle to weather storms on all sides

It is more than seven years since the height of the financial crisis, but the run of disastrous banking news during the past few weeks has revived bad memories. Profit warnings, mass job cuts, share price plunges and defensive capital raisings have abounded.

With the aftershocks of 2008 still hitting the global economy — and central banks in the US and UK shying away from normalising ultra-accommodative monetary policies — banks, formerly seen as the powerhouses of growth, are under pressure on every side. Regulation is piling up. Competitors are stealing business. And many lenders are shrinking fast. Is banking in terminal decline?

It is certainly in turmoil. Hit by challenging markets and onerous post-crisis regulation, bank profitability has been squeezed hard. Today, even JPMorgan Chase, the most profitable Wall Street bank on recent performance, generates a return on equity of just 12 per cent. That compares with the industry average of about 25 to 30 per cent pre-crisis.

A decade ago, investors would have slammed JPM’s chief executive Jamie Dimon for such a dismal return.

Goldman Sachs

, another of the banks that has prospered relative to rivals, suffered a near 40 per cent slump in third-quarter net income. Goldman’s ROE is now just 7 per cent.

There are three simplistic schools of thought about what is going on. The first theory is that this is just a blip induced by excessive regulation; the second, that it is merely a return to normal after an exceptional pre-crisis boom; the third suggests the slow death of banking.

Many bankers see evidence of the first theory in Europe, where politicians and regulators have recently signalled a willingness to relax certain new rules, for example regarding the obligatory “ringfencing” of retail banking from riskier investment banking in the UK. “One of the things that European [policymakers] have done, which is quite damaging to the infrastructure, is reining back the European investment banks,” says Colm Kelleher, investment banking chief at Morgan Stanley.

Other bankers cling to the second argument — that we are experiencing a return to normal. Sergio Ermotti , UBS

chief executive, says: “When we look back to the mid-90s [and] over the last 15 years, we saw a lot of banks doing a me-too strategy, trying to be everything to everybody, changing their DNAs, doing things they weren’t equipped to do. [That] was the anomaly.”

UBS has probably gone further and faster than any other bank to focus on its strengths and ditch businesses that are no longer economic, cutting half its assets and a quarter of its staff since 2007.

“The banking model is in many ways getting more like we’re turning the clock back to the early 1990s,” agrees Philipp Hildebrand, former head of the Swiss National Bank

and now a senior executive at asset manager BlackRock. “When the history books are written, the aberration will not be the past crisis but the 15 years running up to 2007.”

The third, and most extreme, thesis about the mayhem in banking — that much of the industry is now in terminal decline — is peddled by those who are challenging banks’ traditional ways of doing things.

Peer-to-peer or marketplace lenders — online platforms that match lenders with borrowers — are one of several upstart fraternities that believe they can steadily chip away at many of the banking industry’s longstanding functions.

“Clearly banks are under attack on multiple fronts,” says Renaud Laplanche, chief executive of the world’s biggest P2P platform, San Francisco-based Lending Club. “In credit, there is market-based lending. In payments, PayPal is [dominant]. In asset management, you have all the robo advisers. There is a massive competitive threat from tech companies.”

The main advantage new challengers have, says Mr Laplanche, is straightforward: they are unencumbered by old expensive systems, and new regulatory overheads. “Our operating cost is 2 per cent of assets compared with 7 per cent at a typical bank,” he says.

Business among these kinds of challengers is booming as a result. GilesAndrews, who heads the world’s oldest P2P business, UK-based Zopa, says lending volumes are doubling every year. with much of that business stolen from banks and credit card companies. “In consumer credit,” he says, “we’ve got a real chance of getting to 20 or 30 per cent market share in about five years.”

A host of other traditional bank activities are under attack, too. The advisory side of investment banking has boomed recently, but even here there are challengers, as lightly regulated boutiques take a larger chunk of merger and acquisition business from big banks. According to Dealogic, small independent boutiques accounted for 16 per cent of M&A deals in 2014, doubling from 2008.

At the same time, the banks’ trading floors are operating well under capacity. Thousands of traders have been laid

off as regulation has barred them from casino-style proprietary trading and other speciality operations have been rendered too capital-intensive. The best have found work in hedge funds. Many others have found their niche skills are obsolete.

Traders — in particular specialists in exotic derivatives — were widely blamed for triggering the financial crisis. The growing aversion to them is reflected in the new leadership of the world’s big banks. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the heads of nine global banks — UBS

, Credit Suisse

, Deutsche Bank

, Barclays

, Royal Bank of Scotland , Morgan Stanley

, Citigroup

, Goldman Sachs and HSBC

— were all traders.

Now only Goldman’s Lloyd Blankfeinand HSBC’s Stuart Gulliverremain. More pedestrian retail or commercial bankers are now in vogue. One group — Credit Suisse — has even taken the unusual step of sourcing its new chief executive from outside banking altogether. Tidjane Thiam is a former McKinsey consultant and insurance executive.

If banks’ top echelons are changing fast, that is nothing compared with the upheaval at the bottom. Once the career of choice for nearly one in five MBA graduates, banking has been usurped in the popularity stakes by the likes of technology and consultancy, with barely one in 10 now selecting it.

“Talented people don’t want to be bankers any more,” says the head of one top investment bank. “The quality of people has fallen. All of the good ones are going to boutiques, to non-bank financial companies, to technology companies. There is a drain of talent and a lack of innovation.”

Across 28 western nations, data compiled by SNL Financial

show the tally of bank employees fell by 5.5 per cent between 2010 and the end of last year. Besides the industry’s image of being under attack from upstart competitors on the one hand, and regulators on the other, the financial appeal has waned, too. According to PwC, the average investment bank employee earned less than ￡200,000 last year. That is still more than four times the average across a selection of equivalent financial, industrial and consumer jobs but the level has shrunk by a fifth since 2010, while remuneration in other professions has been stable.

Many of the trends in banking apply globally, but the turmoil is clearly most extreme in Europe.

Worldwide, total banking assets have continued to grow — rising 10 per cent over the four years to the end of 2014, according to data on 164 countries collated by SNL Financial and analysed by the Financial Times. But while the likes of China and the US have continued to expand the size of their banking sectors in absolute terms and relative to GDP, virtually every country in Europe has shrunk its banks significantly.

The snag for policymakers is until other alternatives to banks pick up the slack, economic growth, particularly in Europe, will be caught in a doom loop.

全球金融危机最严重时期已过去7年多了，但过去几周，一轮灾难性的银行业消息唤醒了过去那些痛苦的回忆。盈利预警、大规模裁员、股价暴跌以及防御性融资，这样的消息不绝于耳。

2008年金融危机的余波仍在影响全球经济以及美国和英国央行（它们正回避超宽松货币政策的正常化），曾被视为增长推动力的银行正面临各方压力。监管力度在增强。竞争对手正窃取业务。很多银行正快速收缩规模。银行业是否正处于穷途末路？

银行业肯定正处于动荡之中。受到具有挑战性的市场以及危机过后严格监管的影响，银行利润率一直被严重挤压。如今，甚至连根据最近表现堪称华尔街最赚钱银行的摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)，也仅仅取得了12%的股本回报率。而危机之前的行业平均水平约为25%至30%。

如果摩根大通10年前取得如此惨淡的回报率，投资者会狠狠抨击该银行的首席执行官杰米?戴蒙(Jamie Dimon)。

另一家较竞争对手表现较佳的银行高盛(Goldman Sachs)第三季度净利润下滑近40%，股本回报率目前仅为7%。

对于目前的银行业状况有三种简单看法。第一种看法是这只是由过度监管引发的短暂现象；第二种是，这只不过是在危机前的超常繁荣后的常态回归；第三种看法认为银行业正慢慢灭亡。

很多银行人士在欧洲看到了第一种看法的证据，在这里，政治人士和监管者最近表示愿意放松某些新规，例如英国有关将零售银行业强制性“圈护”起来、与风险较高的投行业务隔离的规定。摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)投行业务主管科尔姆?凯勒尔(Colm Kelleher)表示：“欧洲（政策制定者）实行的对基础设施造成相当大破坏的一个举措是，约束欧洲投资银行。”

还有一些银行人士倾向于第二种观点：我们正经历常态回归。瑞银(UBS)首席执行官塞尔吉奥?埃尔默蒂(Sergio Ermotti)表示：“当我们回顾上世纪90年代中期（以及）过去15年时，我们看到很多银行在实行跟随战略(me-too strategy)，试图为所有人提供无所不包的服务，改变银行自己的DNA，做一些它们没有能力做的事情。（这）不正常。”

在关注自身优势以及放弃不再具有经济效益的业务方面，瑞银或许比其他银行做的更多而且速度也更快，自2007年以来，瑞银削减了一半的资产，裁员四分之一。

“从很多角度来看，现在的银行业模式更像是我们把时钟拨回到上世纪90年代初，”瑞士央行(SNB)前行长、现任资产管理公司贝莱德(BlackRock)高管的菲利普?希尔德布兰德(Philipp Hildebrand)认为，“在撰写历史书时，作为反常现象被写入的将不是过去这次危机，而是2007年之前的15年。”

对于银行业乱象的第三种（也是最极端）的看法认为，银行业正大范围走入穷途末路，这是由那些正挑战传统银行业的人士提出的。

个人对个人(P2P)或市场贷款机构（将贷款人与借款人匹配的在线平台）是几个新贵群体之一，它们认为自己可以稳定侵蚀掉银行业的许多历史悠久的职能。

“显然，银行正在多个方面遭遇围攻，”全球最大P2P贷款平台、总部位于旧金山的贷款俱乐部(Lending Club)的首席执行官雷诺?拉普朗什(Renaud Laplanche)表示，“在信贷领域，出现了基于市场的贷款。在支付领域，PayPal（占据主导地位）。在资产管理领域，出现了机器人顾问。银行面临来自科技公司的大规模竞争威胁。”

拉普朗什表示，新的挑战者具备的主要优势简单明了：它们不受成本高昂的旧系统以及新的监管费用的阻碍。他表示：“我们的营运成本为资产的2%，而银行平均为7%。”

结果就是这类挑战者的生意蓬勃发展。总部位于英国的Zopa是全球最早的P2P企业，该公司首席执行官贾尔斯?安德鲁斯(Giles Andrews)表示每年贷款额都在翻番，而大量业务都是从银行和信用卡公司那儿“偷”来的。他说：“在消费信贷方面，我们有很大机会在大约5年内获得20%或30%的市场份额。 ”

银行的许多其他传统活动也受到了攻击。投资银行的咨询业务近来发展良好，但即使这一块业务也受到挑战，大银行的并购业务越来越多的被监管宽松的小型投资银行抢走。根据Dealogic的数据，2014年小型独立投资银行在并购交易业务中占比16%，比2008年翻了一番。

与此同时，银行交易部门的业务量严重不足。数千交易员被解雇，因为监管法规禁止他们从事赌博式的自营交易，其他特殊业务也变得过于资本密集。顶尖交易员们已经跳槽到了对冲基金。还有很多交易员发现他们的特定技能已经过时。

交易员——尤其是离奇衍生品的交易员——被广泛指责引发了金融危机。人们对他们的反感日益增长，从全球各大银行新一届领导班子上可见一斑。金融危机发生后的一段时期里，全球九大银行——瑞银、瑞信(Credit Suisse)、德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)、巴克莱银行(Barclays)、苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland)、摩根士丹利、花旗(Citigroup)、高盛和汇丰(HSBC)——的掌门人原本全是交易员。

如今仅剩高盛的劳埃德?贝兰克梵(Lloyd Blankfein)和汇丰的欧智华(Stuart Gulliver)。现在当道的是风格更平实的零售或商业银行家。瑞信甚至作出了一个不寻常的举动，完全从银行业之外招募新任首席执行官——提贾尼?蒂亚姆(Tidjane Thiam)以前是麦肯锡(McKinsey)咨询顾问和保险高管。

银行高层人员的变动已经算得上剧烈，但与底层的动荡相比根本是小菜一碟。银行业曾经是近五分之一MBA毕业生的职业首选，如今其受欢迎程度已不如技术、咨询等行业，选择它的MBA毕业生只有十分之一。

一家顶级投资银行的负责人表示：“有才华的人不再想成为银行家。人员素质在下降。精英全去了小型投资银行、非银行金融公司、技术公司。我们现在面临着人才流失，且缺乏创新。”

根据SNL Financial收集的28个西方国家的数据，自2010年到2014年底，银行雇员人数下降了5.5%。一方面该行业的形象受到新晋竞争对手的攻击，另一方面监管机构虎视眈眈，除此以外，金融业吸引力下降也是一大原因。据普华永道(PwC)统计，去年投行员工平均收入不足20万英镑，虽然仍是金融、工业和消费行业相对应岗位平均收入的四倍以上，但比起2010年的水平已缩水五分之一，而其他行业的薪酬一直维持稳定。

银行业的许多趋势在全球皆有体现，但欧洲的动荡显然最为剧烈。

在世界范围内，银行总资产仍在继续增长。根据SNL Financial整理的164个国家的数据，英国《金融时报》分析得出，在截至2014年底的四年里，全球银行总资产上升了10%。不过，虽然中美等国银行业规模仍在扩大——无论是绝对规模还是相对于GDP，基本上每个欧洲国家的银行业却都明显缩小。

政策制定者的困难是，除非银行的替代者能弥补银行的不足，否则经济增长（尤其是欧洲的）将陷入厄运循环。

译者/何黎