A batch of Chinese privately owned banks that reformers hoped would direct loans to credit-starved consumers and small businesses have yet to achieve significant scale, denting hopes that they will transform the state-dominated banking system.
China’s banking regulator has revealed data for the first time on a group of five privately owned banks that Beijing approved in 2014 as part of a closely watched pilot programme. The group includes WeBank, backed by social media group Tencent Holdings, and MYBank, controlled by Ant Financial, the financial affiliate of ecommerce giant Alibaba Group.
As a group, the five pilot banks had total assets of Rmb133bn ($19bn) by the end of September and Rmb572m in the first three quarters on 2016, the regulator disclosed. That compares with Rmb217tn in banking assets for Chinese banks overall. If the group were a single institution, it would rank 18th among Chinese lenders by assets.
“In absolute terms, the scale of their assets is very small, so they don’t pose a significant threat to traditional banks,” said Zhong Jiayong, analyst at Beijing Unbank Investment Consultant, which tracks the industry. “But they each have specific advantages that they can exploit, whether it’s their internet platforms or industry knowledge.”
China’s banks are overwhelmingly state-owned, and small, privately owned businesses have long complained that they struggle to obtain loans. Meanwhile, politically directed lending by state banks has sustained an army of state-owned “zombie enterprises” that are unprofitable but cannot die.
Reform advocates had hoped that privately owned banks would shake up the industry by lending to underserved borrowers and even diverting some customer deposits away from incumbent banks. In a sign of the high-level attention, Chinese premier Li Keqiang attended WeBank’s launch ceremony last year.
But the latest figures suggest the private banks — most of which started operations in 2015 — remain too small to meaningfully influence overall credit allocation. Rather than threatening traditional banks, the upstarts are mainly expected to draw on the resources of their corporate backers to serve specific niches.
For Tencent and Ant Financial, that means drawing on huge troves of user data to identify worthy borrowers and assess credit risk. For others, such as banks backed by airline operator JuneYao Group and auto parts manufacturer Wanxiang China Holdings, it means leveraging relationships with and knowledge about customers and suppliers, who can also become borrowers.
对于腾讯和蚂蚁金服而言,这意味着利用海量用户数据去识别有价值的借款人和评估信贷风险。对其他银行、比如航空服务运营商均瑶集团(JuneYao Group)和汽车部件生产商中国万向控股(Wanxiang China Holdings)出资成立的银行而言,这意味着利用与顾客和供应商之间的关系、以及有关顾客和供应商的知识,这两者也可能成为借款方。
According to WeBank’s president, the lender has extended loans to 60m customers since launch. Its most popular product is consumer loans, with an average amount of Rmb8,000. MYBank said earlier this year that its typical loan size was Rmb20,000.
But internet banks have yet to resolve the issue of account opening procedures, given that most have few or no physical branches, Mr Zhong warned. Chinese law requires bank customers to appear in person and present identification in order to open an account. That has limited the private banks’ ability to attract deposits.
Rather than deposits, private banks have relied on interbank borrowing to fund their balance sheets. MYBank is also seeking investors for its first loan securitisation deal and intends securitisation to become a major source of funding.