"The RMB loan increased by 1.45 trillion yuan in that month, an increase of 627.8 billion yuan year-on-year." The financial statistics released by the People's Bank of China recently showed that the growth rate of bank credit exceeded market expectations.
In fact, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission disclosed the above data when it announced on August 11 that it listed the recent measures to unblock the monetary policy transmission mechanism .
It is worth noting that at the moment when the regulatory authorities are making efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of banks serving the real economy in various aspects, the signal of "loose credit" has begun to appear, and "unblocking the monetary policy transmission mechanism and increasing the intensity of bank credit issuance" has begun to be reflected in the financial data in July.
New Credit scale exceeded expectations
Although the new credit scale actually declined compared with June this year, the increase of 1.45 trillion yuan still exceeded market expectations. Previously, some institutions' average forecast for new credit in July was 1.135 trillion yuan. Huatai Macro Li Chao's team believes that after the introduction of a series of policies to encourage increasing credit supply by regulators, the implementation and speed of commercial banks exceeded market expectations.
It is worth noting that among the new RMB loans, there are 238.8 billion notes financing and 158.2 billion non-bank loans. Industrial Industry Research Team believes that after deducting bills and non-bank loans that may be used to increase the scale, the scale of new RMB loans was 1.05 trillion yuan, a slight shrinkage of 23.8 billion yuan year-on-year.
Industrial Research believes that the changes in the loan structure reflect a certain degree of mismatch between on-balance sheet credit line and financing demand since 2017: in 2017, the demand for corporate financing was strong, while the credit line was tight, which compressed the scale of bill financing; in 2018, in order to smooth the transfer of off-balance sheet financing to the on-balance sheet, the on-balance sheet credit line was relatively loose, while the financing demand for infrastructure and some highly leveraged state-owned enterprises fell, which was reflected in the data as a significant rebound in bill financing, but the growth of medium- and long-term loans of enterprises slowed down.
Another data change that has attracted widespread attention from the market is that the growth rate of M2 bottomed out and rebounded - as of the end of July, the balance of M2 was 177.62 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.5% year-on-year, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from the end of last month. Bank of China International Finance Research Institute Fan Ruoying believed in an interview with the Financial Times reporter that the marginal relaxation of monetary policy is the main reason for the rebound of M2 growth, and it is expected that the growth rate of M2 will continue to rebound in the future.
"M2 growth rate bottomed out and rebounded reflecting the overall abundant market liquidity and market interest rates fell." Wen Bin, chief researcher of Minsheng Bank , believes that this also means that the "first half" of the monetary policy transmission mechanism - the monetary policy transmission from the central bank to the interbank market is good.
Bank lending ability and willingness enhancement
In the interview, the Financial Times reporter learned that judging whether the "second half" of the monetary policy transmission mechanism - whether the transmission of the interbank market to the real economy is smooth, the growth rate of M1 and M2 scissors difference is an indicator worthy of attention. Since February this year, the difference in growth rate of M1 and M2 has changed from positive to negative, and the gap has continued to widen. As of the end of July, M1 only grew by 5.1% year-on-year, down 1.5 and 10.2 percentage points from the end of last month and the same period last year, respectively.
"The negative scissors gap in growth rates between M1 and M2 widens, indicating that the liquidity of the real economy continues to be tight." Fan Ruoying analyzed that at present, there is a certain delay in the transmission of the loose capital market in the interbank market to the level of real enterprises. In addition, since the beginning of this year, the slowdown in M1 growth has been closely linked to policies such as real estate regulation and stricter local government debt supervision. It is expected that this trend will continue in the short term.
In fact, since the end of June this year, a series of measures to open up the monetary policy transmission mechanism and enhance banks' ability to serve the real economy have been implemented one after another: from the central bank's targeted reserve requirement cut, guiding bank institutions to increase credit supply to large and micro enterprises, to the second meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Committee of the State Council, emphasizing that greater efforts should be made in credit assessment and internal incentives, and to the endogenous motivation of financial institutions to serve the real economy, especially small and micro enterprises, to the recent announcement of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission listing relevant measures to smooth the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the near future.
In the view of industry analysts, the scale of new credit in July increased beyond expectations, mainly because the policy promotion has taken effect and the bank's ability and willingness to issue credit are enhanced. This can be seen from the data on the main regulatory indicators of the banking industry in the second quarter recently released by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. As of the end of the second quarter, the loan balance of banking financial institutions for small and micro enterprises reached 32 trillion yuan, an increase of 13.1% year-on-year.
"In the next stage, with the gradual implementation of relevant policies related to the monetary policy transmission mechanism, banking institutions will further increase their support for the real economy and better solve the problems of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", the difficulty and high cost of financing for small and micro enterprises." Wen Bin said.
Dai Zhifeng, chief analyst of China Securities Bank, predicts that in the future, bank credit investment will mainly focus on high-level infrastructure and small and micro enterprises. On the one hand, infrastructure is the highlight of future bank loan business, and large and medium-sized banks will serve as the main force; on the other hand, financing for small and micro enterprises may grow rapidly, and the loan types are mainly liquid loans from 3 to 6 months.
The decline in off-balance sheet financing narrows
It is worth mentioning that since July this year, the central bank has adjusted the statistical scope of social financing scale. Under the new caliber, the scale of social financing in July was 1.04 trillion yuan, 124.2 billion yuan less than the same period last year, and the stock of social financing in July increased by 10.3% year-on-year. The research team of Industrial Industry found that since 2017, the growth rate of social financing under the new caliber has been about 0.5 percentage points higher than the original caliber, but the trends of the two are generally consistent.
"The continued contraction of off-balance sheet financing is still the main reason for the slowdown in social financing growth." Fan Ruoying said. Data shows that in July, entrusted loans, trust loans, and undiscounted bank acceptance bills decreased by 95 billion yuan, 119.2 billion yuan and 274.4 billion yuan respectively, down 111.3 billion yuan, 242.4 billion yuan and 70.7 billion yuan respectively compared with the same period last year, but down 69.2 billion yuan, 43.1 billion yuan and 90.6 billion yuan respectively compared with the previous month. Industry insiders generally believe that this indicates that the situation of contraction of off-balance sheet financing has eased.
Experts believe that the narrowing of off-balance sheet financing may be related to three factors: First, the release of financial management rules has reduced the wait-and-see sentiment of some financial institutions; Second, the scale of trust maturity in July was lower than in June; Third, the rebound in the growth rate of commercial housing sales may increase housing provident fund entrusted loans.
"Based on the basis of the new increase in bank loans beyond expectations, the increase in social financing did not rebound, indicating that it is still dragged down by the decline in off-balance sheet financing such as entrusted loans and trust loans." Wen Bin believes that with the substantial implementation of the new asset management regulations and the new bank wealth management regulations, the changes in off-balance sheet financing will tend to be flat.
"From another perspective, the economy is currently facing downward pressure, external uncertainties still exist, and the investment and consumption demand of enterprises and residents is not particularly strong. Therefore, insufficient demand has also led to no rebound in social financing data." Mingming, chief fixed income analyst at CITIC Securities , said, "In the future, targeted and structural credit policies may be more effective in cooperating with active fiscal policies, such as using infrastructure investment to drive the real economy, windows to guide commercial banks to accelerate lending, and encourage various types of funds through financing guarantee funds. Large banks participate in the loan business of small and medium-sized enterprises. "
In this regard, Zeng Gang, director of the Bank Research Center of the National Finance and Development Laboratory, also holds the same view: "If you want to improve banks' willingness to issue credit to small and micro enterprises, you need to adopt some structured policies, such as targeted reserve requirement ratio cuts and special funds. In addition, it can also be discussed to adopt a better risk sharing mechanism in specific areas, such as through financing guarantee funds, making the risks of banks investing in specific areas controllable."
(Editor in charge: Hu Aishan)
