China banks risk Lehman moment as wholesale borrowing rises
中国将再现雷曼时刻？
广州银行翻译公司：中资银行日益使用批发借贷融资，可能失去广泛零售存款基础带来的稳定性，也无法在最需要资金之时筹集到资金。
Chinese banks are increasingly reliant on funding sources that Western peers used before the financial crisis, leading investors and analysts to warn that the country’s financial system could be vulnerable to a Lehman Brothers-style collapse.
中资银行日益依赖西方同行在金融危机前使用的融资来源，这导致投资者和分析师警告称，中国金融体系可能发生雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)那样的崩盘。广州银行翻译公司。
Their use of volatile wholesale borrowing to fund balance sheets has particularly worried analysts, who warn that banks could be left without the stability of a broad retail deposit base and unable to raise cash when most needed.
这些银行使用波动剧烈的批发借贷为资产负债表融资的做法，尤其令分析师感到担忧，他们警告称，这样银行可能会失去广泛零售存款基础带来的稳定性，而且可能无法在最需要资金的时候筹集到资金。
Concern over China’s rising debt has already become widespread among investors and policymakers. These concerns have focused on banks’ declining asset quality as defaults rise but many analysts believe the bigger risk comes from the liabilities carried on bank balance sheets.
如今投资者和政策制定者已经普遍担忧中国债务的日益增长。这些担忧聚焦于随着违约案例增加而日益下降的银行资产质量，但许多分析师相信，更大的风险来自银行资产负债表的负债。广州银行翻译公司。
“The real issue isn’t the volume of debt but rather the liability-side ‘plumbing’ that underlies the debt boom,” says Jonathan Anderson, principal at Emerging Advisors Group and longtime China-watcher. “If there’s going to be financial crisis in China, this is where it will come from.”
长期关注中国事务的Emerging Advisors Group负责人乔纳森•安德森(Jonathan Anderson)表示：“真正的问题不是债务规模，而是支撑债务繁荣的负债方面的‘骤降’。如果中国将要发生金融危机，源头就在这里。”
Chinese lenders have traditionally relied on deposits from households and corporations to fund loans and other investments, providing a buffer against market turmoil. Retail deposits are “stickier” than funding from other financial institutions because retail customers rarely switch banks, while wage payments and corporate revenues provide a steady inflow of new deposits.
中国的银行传统上依赖家庭和企业存款来为贷款和其他投资融资，这为防范市场动荡提供了缓冲。零售存款比来自其他金融机构的融资“更具粘性”，因为零售客户很少换银行，同时薪资收入和企业收入提供了稳定的新增存款流入。
That is now changing, as swift growth in loans and other debt assets outstrips growth of deposits. China’s ratio of private sector credit outstanding to standard commercial bank deposits rose to 117 per cent at the end of March from 84 per cent at the end of 2008, according to an FT analysis.
现在这种情况有所改变，贷款和其他债务资产迅速增长的速度超过了存款的增速。英国《金融时报》的分析表明，在今年3月底，中国私人部门信贷余额与标准商业银行存款的比例从2008年年底的84%升至117%。广州银行翻译公司。
While this ratio is still below the ratio in developed markets such as the US at 181 per cent and the European Union at 178 per cent, the rapid upward trend is worrying, analysts say.
分析师表示，尽管该比例仍低于美国（181%）和欧盟（178%）等发达市场的比例，但其快速上升的趋势令人担忧。
“Exposures are not nearly big enough today to talk about real crisis risks yet. But fast forward a few more years at the current pace, and those risks will start to loom a good bit larger,” says Mr Anderson.
安德森表示：“迄今曝出的迹象还远谈不上有什么切实的危机风险。但以当前速度再快速发展几年，那些风险就会开始显露无疑。”
The widening gap between assets and deposit liabilities is being filled by less stable funding sources. One of these sources is interbank lending. Big banks, whose broad retail branch networks allow them to draw in plentiful deposits, lend to smaller banks with less access to deposit funding.
资产与存款负债之间日益扩大的缺口由不那么稳定的融资来源补足。其中一个来源是银行间借贷。大银行向不容易获得存款资金的较小银行提供借款——大银行广泛的零售分支网络可以让它们吸收大量的存款。广州银行翻译公司。
But beyond the traditional lending between banks, another newer funding source from so-called "wealth management products" (WMPs) is causing concern. These are structured notes offering investors higher yields than those available on traditional bank deposits. Banks create WMPs in partnership with nonbank institutions like trusts, securities companies, and fund management companies.
但除了传统的银行间借贷以外，另一个较新的的融资来源正引发人们的担忧，那就是“理财产品”。这些结构性票据为投资者提供了比那些传统银行存款更高的收益率。银行与信托、证券公司以及基金管理公司等非银行机构合作发行理财产品。
Some WMP proceeds flow directly to corporate borrowers like real estate developers, mines and factories, but most are invested in money-market assets. These assets are essentially loans to banks, mostly in the form of repurchase agreements or interbank “placements”.
一些理财产品资金直接流向了房地产开发商、矿山和工厂等企业借贷者，但大多数被投资于货币市场资产。这些资产从本质上是对银行的贷款，大多数是以回购协议或银行间“同业存款”的形式存在。
“Since 2009 and 2010, we’ve seen a significant shift. Particularly with smaller banks, we’ve seen a greater reliance on borrowing from other financial institutions to fund their business,” says Charlene Chu, senior partner and head of China banks at Autonomous Research in New York. “That can be a source of volatility and problems when a financial sector starts to come under stress.”
纽约Autonomous Research Asia高级合伙人、中资银行主管朱夏莲(Charlene Chu)表示：“自2009年和2010年以来，我们看到了巨大的转变。尤其是较小银行，我们看到它们更加依赖其他金融机构的借贷为其业务融资。当金融行业开始承压的时候，这就可能成为波动和问题的源头。” 广州银行翻译公司。
The nightmare scenario is a WMP default, according to analysts, which could spark a broader run in which customers abruptly stop buying WMPs or even demand immediate redemption of products already purchased.
分析师们表示，噩梦般的场景是理财产品违约，它可能引发更广泛的挤兑，即客户突然不再购买理财产品，甚至要求立即赎回已经购买的产品。
In this scenario, money-market liquidity would evaporate, and banks that rely heavily on wholesale funding could find themselves unable to meet deposit outflows or payouts on their own WMPs.
在这种场景下，货币市场流动性将会消失殆尽，严重依赖批发融资的银行可能发现它们无法满足存款外流或者偿付自己理财产品的要求。
The scenario could be reminiscent of 2008, when the Primary Reserve Fund, a popular US money-market mutual fund, suffered losses on short-term commercial paper issued by Lehman.
这种场景可能让人想起2008年，当时受人欢迎的美国货币市场共同基金Primary Reserve Fund因雷曼发行的短期商业票据而蒙受亏损。
When Primary Reserve “broke the buck”, marking down its shares to below the normal $1-per-share baseline, investors in other money market funds confronted the possibility of losses on products previously considered risk-free. As money-market investors withdrew en masse, these funds were forced to pull loans abruptly from banks and corporates.
当Primary Reserve Fund“跌破面值”的时候——每份净值跌至正常的1美元基线之下——其他货币市场基金的投资者意识到，这种早先被视为无风险的产品也存在亏损的可能。随着货币市场投资者大规模撤出，这些基金被迫突然收回对银行和企业的贷款。广州银行翻译公司。
Mr Anderson warns of a situation in which “isolated seizures among nonbank financials start to paralyse parts of the banking system as well. At that point, fears of counterparty risk grow, setting off a wave of liquidity hoarding”.
安德森警告称，可能发生的情况是，“非银行金融机构的孤立挤兑开始让银行业体系的某些部分也陷入瘫痪。届时，对交易对手风险的担忧增加，引发一波流动性囤积”。
Even in the absence of a system-wide run on money-market funding, reports of problems at a specific institution could cause wholesale lenders to cut funding, much as Northern Rock in the UK found itself abandoned when counterparties began to doubt its solvency.
即便没有出现货币市场资金的系统性出逃，某个机构出现问题的相关报道也可能导致批发借贷者切断融资，英国北岩银行(Northern Rock)的情况基本上就是如此，当交易对手方开始怀疑其偿付能力时，它发现自己被抛弃了。
“Banks are becoming more sensitive to the risk of potential counterparty failure, which could magnify any collective reaction to negative news and trigger a sharp tightening in system liquidity,” says Christine Kuo, senior vice-president at rating agency Moody’s in Hong Kong, where she covers financial institutions.
评级机构穆迪(Moody’s)驻香港高级副总裁郭书岑(Christine Kuo)表示：“银行对潜在对手方破产的风险越来越敏感，这可能放大对负面新闻的任何集体反应，并引发系统流动性急剧收紧。”郭书岑负责穆迪的金融机构部。广州银行翻译公司。
China launched deposit insurance beginning last year that covers most bank deposits. Most WMPs, by contrast, provide no explicit guarantee. Yet much like US money-market funds before 2008, most Chinese investors consider WMPs “money-good” and pay little attention to fine-print disclosures about underlying assets, relying instead on the reputation of the state-owned banks that sell them.
中国去年推出了涵盖大部分银行存款的存款保险制度。相比之下，大多数理财产品没有任何明确担保。然而与美国2008年前的货币市场基金一样，中国投资者认为理财产品“就像现金一样保险”，几乎不怎么注意小字披露的标的资产信息，而是依赖销售这些产品的国有银行的名声。
Chinese banks have struggled to extricate themselves from implicit guarantees. In 2013, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China used its own funds to ensure payouts on a WMP that it had sold through its branches but for which it bore no legal responsibility.
中资银行一直难以摆脱隐性的担保责任。2013年，中国工商银行(ICBC)使用自有资金确保了一款理财产品的兑付，该产品是通过该行分支机构销售的、但该行在法律上对其不承担兑付责任。
The moves echoed bailouts of off-balance-sheet vehicles by bank sponsors like HSBC and Citibank during the financial crisis. These institutions faced pressure to shield clients from losses in order to prevent reputational damage, even though they had no legal obligation.
这些举动呼应了汇丰(HSBC)和花旗银行(Citibank)等银行担保人在金融危机期间对表外工具的纾困。为了避免名誉受损，这些机构不得不尽力保护客户免于蒙受亏损，即便它们没有这样做的法律义务。广州银行翻译公司。
In theory, new banking regulations under the global Basel III framework should prevent Chinese banks from relying too heavily on short-term funding. The “net stable funding ratio” was added to Basel III specifically to address this vulnerability. A separate “liquidity coverage ratio” is meant to ensure banks hold enough easy-to-sell assets to survive a 30-day stress period when money-market funding is unavailable.
理论上，全球《巴塞尔协议III》(Basel III)框架中提出的的新的银行业监管规定应该阻止中资银行过于依赖短期融资。《巴塞尔协议III》专门补充了“净稳定资金比率”(net stable funding ratio)以应对这一薄弱点。还有一个“流动性覆盖比率”的目的是确保银行持有足够的易变现资产，从而能够挺过无法获得货币市场资金的30天压力期。
China’s banking regulator has published draft regulations to implement Basel III, but the rules do not come into full effect until 2018 at the earliest.
中国银行业监管机构发布了监管草案以执行《巴塞尔协议III》，但这些规则最早也得2018年才会完全生效。
“Net stable funding ratio is still years away. Today, no Chinese bank publishes their ratio. They’re calculating it internally but they don’t publish any ratio, so we really don’t know what it's like,” says Mr Kuo.
郭书岑表示：“净稳定资金比率还有数年才会落实。如今，没有一家中资银行发布自己的这项比率。它们在内部估算该比率，但它们没有不发布，因为我们真的不知道情况是什么样子。”
