美国信贷紧缩正式结束

    美国正式告别信贷紧缩。

    自从本轮金融危机爆发以来，美国银行业的贷款规模终于第一次超过了2008年底的水平。7月中旬，美联储(Federal Reserve)公布带有时滞的数据显示，美国银行业贷款余额达到了7.33万亿美元。这个数字略高于2008年10月、上次美国银行业贷款规模见顶时的7.32万亿美元。

    但贷款增速仍然保持低位，增长也不均衡。今年前三个月贷款出现下降后，二季度又现反弹。增加的贷款不少发放给了企业借款人。

    银行研究公司Bankregdata.com的统计显示，过去两年工商业贷款余额增长了27%。同期，个人住房抵押贷款仅增长了4%，虽然最近出现了一股再融资热，目前看来可能已经见顶。只有很少的抵押贷款是用于新购住宅。信用卡贷款增长了不到0.5个百分点。但汽车贷款增长了15%。

    信贷紧缩在美国经济历史上较为罕见，往往也不会持续很长时间。2000年左右的经济衰退后，银行业贷款回升花了1年多一点的时间。20世纪80年代末和90年代初，贷款一度增长缓慢，但从未真正下降。最近这次信贷紧缩持续的时间差一点就达到了5年，似乎是美联储1947年以来数据库中规模最大、持续时间最长的一次。

    一路走来，经济学家们激辩此次信贷紧缩究竟是因为银行惜贷，还是贷款需求缺乏。很多政客归咎于银行。确实，金融危机爆发之后，要获得一笔住房贷款看起来要比过去困难得多，但也有很多人认为，金融危机前的贷款标准可能过于宽松了。另外，最近银行存款的增长快于贷款，意味着人们存入银行的钱流回经济体系的比例在下降。

    全美独立企业联盟(NFIB)首席经济学家比尔•登科伯格表示，根据他在整个信贷紧缩期间对小企业主进行的调查显示，小企业获得贷款的能力几乎没有出现下降。登科伯格说：“我们真正看到的是不想贷款的企业比例接近历史高点。”

    不过，有积极迹象显示贷款增长将持续，只是增速比较缓慢。最近的美联储借款人调查发现，银行终于开始降低个人获取住房、汽车和信用卡贷款的门槛。调查还表示，企业获取贷款的难度也在下降，而且这个趋势正在强化。贷存比一年多来首次上升，但略高于70%的水平仍接近历史低点。过去银行业总是将90%的存款用于放贷。

    在最近的一份分析报告中，投资公司Sterne Agee的银行业分析师托德•海格曼预测，2014年和2015年贷款将加速，但估计增速只有2005年左右增速的一半左右。当然，这依然是一件好事。（财富中文网） 

    We are officially uncrunched.

    For the first time since the start of the financial crisis, banks have more lent out then they did in late 2008. In mid-July, according to the Federal Reserve, which reports the figures with a lag, banks had $7.33 trillion in loans outstanding. That was slightly more than the $7.32 trillion banks had extended in October 2008, the last time credit peaked.

    But the growth in lending has remained slow and uneven. Lending in the first three months of the year dropped, before rebounding in the second quarter. And much of the rebound in lending has been to corporate borrowers.

    The volume of commercial and industrial loans outstanding is up 27% in the past two years, according to Bankregdata.com. Consumer mortgage credit, however, is up just 4% in the same time, despite a recent refinance boom, which appears now to have peaked. Very little mortgage lending was for new purchases. Credit card lending is up less than half a percent. Auto loans, though, are up 15%.

    Credit crunches are rare in American economic history, and don't tend to last long. It took slightly more than a year for lending to recover after the early 2000s recession. Credit grew slowly in the late-1980s and early 1990s, but never really dropped. The recent credit crunch, which clocks in at just under five years, appears to be the largest and longest in the Federal Reserve's database, which only goes back to 1947.

    Along the way, economists have debated whether the credit crunch was being driven by banks being unwilling to lend, or from a lack of demand for loans from borrowers. Many politicians blamed the banks. It does appear that getting a home loan became much tougher after the financial crisis, though many would argue it was too loose before it. And recently deposits at the banks have been rising faster than loans, meaning less of the money people are putting into banks is making its way back out into the economy.

    Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB's chief economist, says his surveys of small business owners throughout the credit crunch show that there was little drop-off in the ability of small businesses to get loans. "What we really saw was a near record high percentage of businesses who don't want a loan," says Dunkelberg.

    Still, there are positives signs that lending growth will continue, albeit slowly. The Federal Reserve's most recent survey of lenders found that banks are finally making it easier for individuals to get home, car and credit card loans. The survey also said that the trend toward easier loans for businesses is improving. And the ratio of loans to deposits rose for the first time in over a year, though at just over 70% it is still near all-time lows. Banks used to lend out 90% of their deposits.

    In a recent analyst note, Sterne Agee bank analyst Todd Hagerman predicted that lending will pick up in 2014 and 2015, though he still expects the growth will be about half what it was in the mid-2000s. That, of course, could be a good thing.