First-quarter profits at China’s four major state banks grew by less than 2%, down dramatically from a growth range of 7-14% just a year earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported. Profit rose by 1.4% to RMB74.3 billion (US$12 billion) at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (1398.HKG, 601398.SHA); by 1% to RMB45.84 billion at Bank […]
Category: Banking & Finance
Chinese commercial banks’ reticence to purchase local government debt in a new debt-for-bond swap plan has prompted the People’s Bank of China to speed up consideration of a mechanism that would allow the banks to swap the bonds they purchase for loans from the central bank, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed officials. The […]
Mainland banks face a paucity of go-to, qualified borrowers as they attempt to make use of the RMB1.2 trillion (US$193.5 billion) of liquidity freed up by the central bank’s cut to their reserve requirement ratio, South China Morning Post reported, citing financial analysts. As the economy has slowed and debt mounted, the threat of default […]
The provincial governments of Jiangsu and Anhui have postponed bond auctions after low yields failed to draw sufficient interest in the debt from commercial banks, The Financial Times reported, citing the state news affiliate Economic Information Daily. The disinterest from banks poses a problem for the finance ministry’s plan to refinance RMB1 trillion in debt […]
Margin lending in China has more than tripled to more than RMB1.7 trillion (US$274.6 billion) in the past year, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing data from WIND Information Co. Research by Macquarie Securities Group shows margin debt equal to 8.2% of the stock available to be freely traded, easily exceeding a peak of 6% […]