China's banks pick up the slack as shadow banking stagnates in H1

Banks continued to serve as China’s dominant channel for finance in the first half of 2015, bearing much of the country’s risk as off-balance-sheet shadow banking grew only slightly in the first half of the year to about 35% of gross domestic product, South China Morning Post reported, citing data from Moody’s Investors Service. Bank lending, meanwhile, grew to 144% of GDP during the period, up from about 133% in 2014. Direct capital markets financing showed little growth: 26% of GDP in the first half, up from 24% in 2014. Data from AXA Investment Managers showed that the banks filled much of the finance gap left by shadow banking.