In this joint report with the Fung Global Institute we put the shadow banking sector into perspective of the overall Chinese financial system and review the emerging risks of the sector in detail. We find that; despite significant need for reform, China is still starting from a position of relative strength. Taking a national balance sheet approach we show that China positive net asset position of RMB 87 TN (184% of GDP), even after accounting for all gross liabilities. We also show that widely published corporate debt/GDP ratios are inflated, as they do not take into account the vast amount of deposits held by Chinese corporates. Finally, we argue that China is a net lender to the rest of the world and that any emerging debt problem will be a domestic one without global systemic implications.
For the shadow banking sector itself, we observe that traditional sizing, usually from a regulatory angle, does not account for significant levels of double or even treble counting. We take a "source" and "use" of funds approach to address these overlaps and size the market at RMB 31 TN, significantly lower than the outcome of a standard aggregation approach, which leads to about RMB 57 TN. We then review non-performing loans (NPLs) and run various scenarios. In our base scenario shadow banking NPLs will go up to 10%. Even in our "disastrous" scenario NPLs will "only" go up to 24%. We then find that only 22% to 44% of such NPLs will be "transferrable" to the formal banking system and will create incremental banking NPLs of about 1.8% under our base scenario and 4.3% under our "disastrous" scenario.
In conclusion, China's shadow banking problem is still manageable, but time is of the essence to pre-empt any escalation of shadow banking NPLs, which could have contagion effects. The current juncture represents an opportunity for a holistic solution to address the structural imbalances in the Chinese economy and financial system. This is being addressed in a separate section on policy recommendations. The paper closes with a view on the implications for the private sector, outlining an agenda for domestic peers in term of how to react to digital-enabled models in the shadow banking sector which could potentially disrupt parts of their business. It also discusses how these developments create opportunities for international competitors to compete more effectively in the Chinese market.
Authors
Andrew Sheng – Fung Global Institute Distinguished Fellow
Christian Edelmann – Partner and Head of Global Corporate and Institutional Banking Practice, Oliver Wyman
Cliff Sheng – Partner and Head of China, Oliver Wyman
Jodie Hu – Fung Global Institute Research Analyst
近年来随着中国经济增长速度放缓，中国模式再次受到质疑。外界的质疑和担忧突出围绕两个核心问题，一是中国过度依赖信贷投放拉动经济繁荣，二是中国影子银行规模快速扩张，并且担心影子银行成为引发下一轮全球金融危机的根源。
《影中探光—剖析中国影子银行》研究报告是香港经纶国际研究院与奥纬咨询合作完成的成果。我们将影子银行放到中国整个金融体系的框架背景下梳理分析，深入解析影子银行初露端倪的各种风险。我们研究发现：尽管中国金融体系亟需改革，但是总体而言仍处于较为稳健的状态。采用国家资产负债表分析方法，中国主权资产负债表在扣除全部负债后的净资产高达87万亿人民币（占中国GDP总量的184%）。我们还发现企业债务占GDP比值指标在大部分讨论中被放大，原因在于这一比值并未考虑中国企业所持有的巨量存款。最后，我们认为中国目前是世界其他国家的净债权国，其出现的债务问题基本属于国内的问题，不会直接产生全球范围的系统性影响。
对于影子银行本身，我们观察到传统的业务规模统计通常基于监管视角，未能很好地解决存在的双重甚至三重统计问题，对此我们采用资金“来源”和“使用”对照分析法解决重复统计的问题，从而确定中国影子银行的总体规模约为31万亿人民币。这一数字大大低于将各类影子银行产品简单汇总相加的计算结果，即约57万亿人民币。其次，我们测试了多个情景下中国影子银行不良贷款率水平。测算结果是在基准情景下，影子银行不良贷款率或上升至10%。即使是“灾难性”情景下，这一数字也“仅仅”提高到24%。进一步研究发现只有2%至44%的影子银行不良贷款可能“转移”到正规银行体系。由此，在基准情景和灾难情景下，银行体系的不良贷款率将分别攀升1.8%和4.3%。
简言之，目前中国影子银行仍处于可控水平，但应当给予迫切关注，避免宏观经济增长趋缓过程中相关风险的蔓延扩散。当下，中国经济增长趋缓与影子银行规模膨胀问题相互叠加，这一现实挑战为决策者解决中国经济与金融系统的结构性失衡带来了机遇。报告的政策建议章节分析了中国影子银行和金融体系改革方案现状并提出了政策建议。报告结尾章节则阐述了影子银行对金融机构的影响，尤其是互联网金融对传统金融机构业务的颠覆效应及后者应如何应对这一挑战。报告结尾也讨论了上述趋势为外资金融机构增强在华市场的竞争力所创造的机遇。
