观
察人士说，中国正规银行系统以外缺乏监管的金融企业今年贷款激增，给政府调控经济、控制通胀的努力带来越来越多的麻烦。
Reuters
人民币钞票
惠誉国际评级(Fitch Ratings)周四一篇报告估计，中国银行业今年以来的人民币新增贷款已经突破监管层设定的全年限额7.5万亿元（合1.126万亿美元），另外未记入资产负债表的信贷超过了3万亿元。
贷款总额跟2009年基本未变；2009年，中国银行业根据一个刺激计划大举扩张信贷，新增贷款达到前一年两倍左右，目的是让中国经济在全球金融危机期间保持运转。
惠誉这份报告说，贷款没有放缓，只是找到了其他渠道，这有助于解释为什么通胀率和房价仍然居高不下，为什么（第三季度）GDP增长比预期更强，为什么中国有关部门对美国新一轮量化宽松表达了如此多的担忧。
记者暂未联系到作为银行监管机构的中国银行业监督管理委员会置评。
有多少贷款通过“其他渠道”发放尚不可知，因为没有谁负责这类数据的集中整理。惠誉说，它所说的3万亿元表外贷款属于粗略估计。
就在北京方面已经尝试撤回刺激措施的时候，中国10月份消费价格指数仍较去年同期上涨4.4%，食品价格飙升10.1%。中国第三季度国内生产总值(GDP)较一年前增长9.6%。
渣打银行(Standard Chartered)经济学家王志浩(Stephen Green)说，官方指标常常被中国的影子银行系统打了折扣，但愿明年的指标实施得更加严格。
当北京在去年年底着手撤回刺激计划、监管机构开始要求银行减缓信贷发放的时候，银行开始寻找更多创造性的途径来发放贷款。
惠誉评级表示，去年银行发放的约11万亿元人民币贷款中既包括9.6万亿元的正式贷款，也包括资产负债表外的非正式贷款。
报道称，非银行机构发放的贷款数量非常多，现在要想调整中国发放的总贷款数量可不再是给银行贷款配额并监督其是否有效执行那么简单了。
非正规或地下借贷对很多中国企业来说，历来就是一个重要的资金来源，在信贷紧缩时期更是如此。不过更多全新的复杂金融机构现在开始填补了这一缺口，今年信托公司就是一个例子。
毕马威(KPMG)金融服务亚太区负责人李世民(Simon Gleave)说，信托机构从本质上来说是投机性的，它们对于填补银行系统遗留的缺口非常在行。
信托是一种具有中国特色的投资工具，利用一种非正式的证券化把银行贷款重新打包成投资产品，从而使银行发放的贷款不会超过其贷款配额。中国目前银行的存款利率偏低，一年期存款利率仅为2.5%，低于通货膨胀率，因此银行毫不费力就可以找到寻求更高回报的投资者。
分析人士说，银行即使与信托机构之间达成协议，同意在几周至几年后回购信托产品，它们一般也不会将这些贷款记入其资产负债表中。
中国的银行监管者一直在努力控制银行的表外贷款。今年8月，中国银监会发出通知，要求表外贷款超过限额的银行须于明年年底将贷款收回。
由于防范房地产泡沫，监管者今年要求银行收紧对房地产市场的贷款，因此信托产品也借机成为了房地产市场资金的主要来源。据信托行业协会的数据，今年前三季度信托公司向房地产市场累计发放了3,200亿元贷款。中国央行数据显示，对于已向房地产市场发放了1.72万亿元的正式银行贷款来说，这笔信托贷款的数量可谓规模巨大。
从某种意义上来说，房地产市场以信托方式借钱对中国政府是有利的。
李世民说，让房地产开发商找信托机构贷款应该可以起到限制房地产市场过热的作用，道理很简单，因为借贷成本提升让开发商的选择更少了。
中国监管者11月初向信托机构下发了一则通知，提醒其防范房地产市场的风险。一些信托公司已经开始限制向房地产市场发放贷款。
另外，惠誉评级的报告还发现了一个大规模“漏出信贷”的方法，即银行利用一种回购协议从而避免在其资产负债表上记录已贴现票据。该票据属于一种贸易融资。
Dinny McMahon
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
China's government has traditionally used its control of the largely state-owned banking sector to regulate the country's pace of economic growth, directing it to pump out cheap credit in good times and restricting the volume of new loans to prevent overheating. But controlling credit has become more difficult as the financial system gets more sophisticated, analysts say, making it more difficult for Beijing to bring the economy in for a smooth landing in coming months.
In a report Thursday, Fitch Ratings estimated that China's banks already have blown past the 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.126 trillion) limit that regulators set on new local currency lending for this year and extended more than CNY3 trillion in credit that hasn't been recorded on their balance sheets.
In total lending, that's largely unchanged from 2009, when China's banks led a massive expansion of credit 'roughly doubling the volume of new loans from a year earlier' as part of a stimulus program to keep the economy humming during the global financial crisis.
'Lending has not moderated, it has merely found other channels,' Fitch says in the report. That 'helps explain why inflation and property prices are still stubbornly high, why [third-quarter] GDP growth was stronger than expected, and why Chinese authorities have voiced so much concern about further quantitative easing in the U.S.'
The China Banking Regulatory Commission--China's bank regulator, known as CBRC--couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
The amount of loans treated this way is unclear because nobody centrally collates the data, and Fitch says its CNY3 trillion estimate for off-balance-sheet credit is a rough estimate.
Even as Beijing has tried to ratchet back on its stimulus efforts, China's consumer-price index rose by 4.4% in October from a year earlier and food prices surged 10.1%. China's gross domestic product rose 9.6% from a year earlier in the third quarter.
'The official [loan] quota is often undermined by China's shadow banking system,' said Standard Chartered economist Stephen Green. 'Hopefully next year's will be more strictly enforced.'
When Beijing moved to exit the stimulus program at the end of last year and regulators started to pressure banks to ease up on issuing credit, banks started looking for more creative ways to lend.
Fitch says bank lending 'including both the 9.6 trillion yuan formally lent as well as off-balance-sheet lending' was about CNY11 trillion last year.
'With so much activity underway in the nonbank sector, adjusting the amount of lending in the economy is no longer as simple as handing out quotas to banks and monitoring their compliance,' the report said.
Informal or underground lending has always been an important source of credit for many of China's companies, particularly during periods of credit tightening. But new, more sophisticated financial institutions are starting to fill that role, exemplified this year by trust companies.
'Trusts are opportunistic in nature and are very good at filling gaps left open by the banking system,' said Simon Gleave, regional head of Asia Pacific for financial services at KPMG.
Trusts--an investment vehicle unique to China--enabled banks to stay below their loan quota by using an informal type of securitization to repackage bank loans as investment products. With banks' deposit rates so low--at 2.5% for one year, a rate that is below the level of inflation, banks had no trouble finding investors seeking a higher return.
Banks generally take those loans off their books even though they agree with the trusts to repurchase the loans any time between a few weeks and a few years later, analysts say.
China's bank regulators have been working to curb bank off-balance-sheet lending. In August, the CBRC told banks that loans moved off their balance sheets up to that point must be returned by the end of next year.
Trusts have also become a major player in property development this year, after bank lending to the sector was curtailed by regulators wary of a bubble forming. According to data from the trusts' industry association, trust companies directed CNY320 billion toward the property sector in the first three quarters of this year. That would add significantly to the CNY1.72 trillion that banks have already lent to the sector, according to central bank data.
In some way, the move toward trust lending works in the interests of the central government.
'Having property developers turn to trusts should act as a limit on overheating of the real estate sector simply because the higher cost of capital leaves them with less options,' said Gleave.
Regulators sent the trust companies a notice early November warning them to be wary of risks in the real estate sector. Some trust companies have already curtailed their real estate lending.
The Fitch report also identified another avenue of large-scale 'credit leakage' whereby banks use a type of repurchase agreement to avoid recording discounted bill, a type of trade finance, on their balance sheets.
Dinny McMahon
没有评论:
发表评论