国内新闻

2月24日，中国银监会召开会议，原任山东省长郭树清接替尚福林出任银监会主席。

4月14日，银监会新主席两周7道令 银行严查吃空饷官太太。

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A sunny spell     

A new mood of optimism infects investors in China’s banks

But many believe that the underlying faultlines remain      Apr 12th 2017| SHANGHAI

阳光解读

乐观情绪感染投资者看好中国银行 但有很多人仍然持有分歧意见

GUO SHUQING, China’s new banking regulator, knows the enormity of his task. China’s banking system, he observed last month, is worth more than $33trn. So it is bigger than any other country’s, and even than Europe’s as a whole. And he is well aware of the pitfalls left by a decade of breakneck lending growth. But if Mr Guo is nervous, he is hiding it. “All problems and contradictions will be resolved,” he says.

郭树清，新任中国银监会主席知道任务的艰巨。他观察到上个月中国的银行资产是33万亿。这比任何国家都大，甚至超过欧洲总和。他深知过去几十年来疯狂信贷扩张带来的危险。但如果郭先生紧张就会隐藏自己，他说：“所有矛盾和风险都会得到化解”。

Of course, a Chinese official can be expected to express confidence about Chinese banks. More surprising is that a small but growing number of analysts and investors seem to concur. Chinese bank shares are up by a quarter since early last year. One investment bank, Morgan Stanley, has declared that China’s lenders are “in a sweet spot”. Another, Goldman Sachs, has upgraded China to “overweight”—that is, recommending that clients buy Chinese shares—and is especially positive about the banks.Shanghai Financial News, a local newspaper, described the new mood around these giant institutions as the “return of the king”. The question is whether it will be a long, stable reign or a short-lived, turbulent one.

诚然，中国官员当然会对中国的银行报喜不报忧。意外的是为数不多但不断增加的分析师和投资人似乎看好中国银行业。银行概念股从去年早些时候到现在已经上涨了25%。国际投行摩根斯坦利宣称中国银行处在最佳投资点。高盛上调中国股市投资评级至“超配”（2016年9月12日），也就是推荐他的客户购买中概股尤其是银行股。一家上海地方报纸金融报称银行股的提“王者归来”。问题是投行的态度是长期的、稳定的还是短期的、混乱的。（摩根斯坦利118页报告：我们为什么看多中国！）

The clearest positive for China’s banks has been an upturn in nominal economic growth. Real GDP growth (ie, accounting for inflation) is likely to be little changed in 2017 from last year’s 6.7%. But nominal growth is nearly 10% in yuan terms, up markedly over the past 12 months. Higher prices have led to stronger corporate revenues, particularly for indebted steel-producers and coalminers. This, in turn, has made it easier for them to repay loans. Chinese banks’ official bad-debt ratio, climbing since 2012, held steady last year at about 1.7%. Many analysts still think the real level of toxic loans is many times that (some estimate the ratio is as high as 19%), but the bleeding has clearly slowed.

看多中国的银行最为突出的表现在中国名义GDP增长。2017年实际GDP（考虑了通货膨胀）的增长和2016年的6.7%相差无几。但以人民币计算的名义GDP在过去的一年里增长了10%。物价上涨给企业带来更多的利润，特别是负债累累的钢铁和煤炭行业。高物价反过来让僵尸企业更容易还贷。中国银行官方坏账率从2012年开始上升，去年稳定在1.7%。很多分析师坚持认为真实的不良贷款率是好几倍（有的预测高达19%），但坏账增长很显然放缓了。（市场经济下如果不良贷款达到3%就玩完了。3月24日开始停止逆回购收紧流动性）

Meanwhile, banks have started to clean up their balance-sheets. In part, this has been through more write-offs of problem loans. Banks took losses on more than 500bn yuan ($75bn) of loans last year, a record, scrubbing them from their books and selling some to investors. With more credit going to infrastructure projects and to mortgages, which traditionally have been safe in China, loan portfolios are looking healthier. Richard Xu of Morgan Stanley reckons that high-risk credit will decline from about 6% of total credit in China today to less than 3% by 2020.

与此同时，银行开始清理资产负债。某种程度上清理负债更多是通过消除不良贷款。银行从负债表上剥离或者卖给投资者（资产管理公司），去年清理了超过5000亿人民币的不良贷款，创了纪录。随着越来越多的贷款投向基础建设和房贷这些传统的安全项目上，投资组合（资产包）看起来还算健康。摩根斯坦利的Richard Xu认为高风险贷款占总贷款的比重将会从现在的6%下降到2020年的不到3%。（高风险坏账率，官方1.7%，大摩估计6%，真实坏账究竟几何？？？）

There are also signs that China’s bloated state-owned banks are getting a little more efficient as they respond to competition from fintech companies. The four biggest banks, which account for nearly two-fifths of the industry’s assets, cut employees in 2016 for the first time in six years. Banks have been rolling out mobile apps to handle payment and investment transactions that used to be conducted in person. Overall costs of listed banks rose by just 0.6% last year, even as assets grew by 12%.

同时有迹象表明臃肿的国有银行因为要应对来自科技金融公司的竞争而变得更高效（支付宝，微信等）。四大银行的规模占整个银行业比重接近五分之二，2016年是六年以来首次裁员（2011年以来首次四大行裁员缩减报道）。银行开始推出移动应用APP去处理原本需要人工处理的支付和投资交易业务。总体而言上市银行资产增加了12%但成本仅上涨0.6%。

All these good omens, however, may not mean China’s banks have really turned the corner. The beautification of their books has relied on financial engineering. Over the past three years the government has approved the creation of 35 asset-management companies (ie, “bad banks”). Jason Bedford of UBS, a Swiss bank, says that these companies, which buy delinquent loans from banks, often also finance themselves through bank loans.

所有这些利好的迹象并不真的意味中国银行时来运转。他们的资产负债通过金融工程得以美化。过去的三年政府批准成立了35家资产管理公司（例如：坏账公司）。瑞银的 Jason Bedford说：这些公司通常通过银行融资来购买银行的不良贷款（坏账债权）。

Debt-for-equity swaps are another form of financial engineering: instead of repaying loans, indebted companies can issue shares to third parties, which acquire the loans from banks. Yet the fine print shows that their equity functions like bonds: the companies must pay dividends and buy back shares if they miss revenue targets. Moreover, the parties holding the equity are funded in part by investment products sold off-balance-sheet by banks. The upshot is that, whether stashed in bad banks or converted into equity, the debt could yet bounce back into banks’ hands.

债权转股权是另一种金融工程：负债公司向第三方公司出售股份而不是偿还银行贷款，第三方公司也是从银行获得贷款。然而从债转股的细则来看股权的功能像股票一样：商业公司盈利必须分红，如果无法达成目标则应当回购股份。（对赌协议）更为严重的是，第三方公司要通过银行的表外业务理财产品获得一定融资去持有商业公司的股份。最终的结果是债务无论在坏账银行还是转换成股权，最后都摊到银行手上。（次贷危机通俗释义）

The simple problem that underlies this complex restructuring activity is excessive lending growth. China’s total debt-to-GDP ratio has risen from less than 150% before 2008 to more than 260% today; in other economies, such increases have often presaged severe financial stress. Aware of the dangers, the Chinese government has made reducing debt a priority. It is taking baby steps towards that goal: thanks to faster nominal growth, China’s debt-to-GDP ratio will expand more slowly this year. But it will still expand. S&P Global, a rating agency, warned in March that this trajectory for Chinese banks is unsustainable.

复杂的重组工作是源于一个简单的问题-------信贷扩张过度。中国负债率从2008年前的150%到今天超过了260%；如果是在其他国家，负债如此增加通常预示着严重的金融危机。中国政府意识到风险，已将削减信贷作为头等大事。但达成目标的行动异常缓慢：多亏了名义GDP的快速增长，今年中国的负债率增长有所放缓。但负债率仍然在增长。评级机构标准普尔在三月警告过中国银行稳定趋势是负面。（银行业“外困内稳”）

Efforts to curb borrowing are themselves emerging as a new risk. Over the past few months the central bank has raised banks’ short-term borrowing costs. That has been a shot across the bows of overextended lenders, especially mid-tier banks. These have been most aggressive in funding themselves with loans from other banks, rather than doing the painstaking work of building up bigger deposit bases.

削减信贷会给银行带来新风险。过去的几个月央行上调了银行间短期贷款基准利率。这将是射穿过度授信银行的一支箭尤其是中等银行。对于中小银行来说无疑是首当其冲，因为他们从其他银行借款而非一点一滴地增加储蓄基础。

Already this tightening has led to volatility. In March the central bank made an emergency liquidity injection after small banks were reported to have missed interbank debt payments, suggesting that the basic gears of the financial system were starting to get gummed up.

信贷收紧已经导致银行的波动。今年三月小银行被曝无法偿还银行间的贷款后央行紧急注入流动性（三月份中小银行违约，央行紧急逆回购），这表明国家金融体系的基础（中小银行）开始。

蓝色 市净率，褐色 市值以2011年为基准（100）作比

For many in the market, the cons in Chinese banking outweigh the pros. Bank shares have rallied since last year, but investors still price them just at about 80% of the reported value of their assets (see chart). In other words, they expect more bad news to come—if not this year, then soon enough. From his seat in the regulator’s office, Mr Guo has his work cut out: not just in controlling risks, but also in persuading the wider world that it still has China’s banks pegged wrong.

市场上看空中国银行超过看多。银行股价自去年以来回升，但投资者依旧认可市净率为0.8.（市值的80%）。也就是说，他们期待有更多的利空消息，如果不是今年也会很快了。郭树清上任银监会主席就明确工作目标：不仅仅控制风险，同时要说服（看空）市场，空头仍然认为中国银行钉定错了方向。

（多空对杀正如《大空头》，中国银行业是王者归来还是风雨欲来？虽然有投行背书，也有郭主席上台提振外国投资者对中国银行的信心，但投资者认为小修小补无力避免系统性风险，依然看空。）

原文

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21720614-many-believe-underlying-faultlines-remain-new-mood-optimism

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