Chin’s battle with risky credit products endures with no victory in sight, according to The Wall Street Journal. In its quarterly report, the People’s Bank of China said wealth-management products – a form of shadow financing, mostly stashed away off banks’ balance sheets – continued to surge, rising 30% on the year to over 26 trillion yuan at the end of 2016. The growth comes even as the central bank has taken to controlling risks – raising rates, balancing liquidity, reining in the growth of M1 money supply. As Chinese banks’ profit growth slows, asset quality deteriorates and funding concerns rise, banks have leaned on wealth-management products for fee growth, short-term funding and yield. This has made the products an intrinsic part of the system. So regulators have struggled to get rid of this shadow leverage.
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