民营银行开启全新融资渠道

    2015年伊始，中国股市一路高歌，周一上证指数继续大涨3.6%。

    但在喧嚣的金融市场之外，一些正在发生的事情可能更为重要：民营资本开始开设银行，这将为这个世界第二大经济体开启重要的全新企业融资渠道。

    由互联网巨头腾讯控股有限公司投资的纯互联网银行——深圳前海微众银行于新年假期期间开始营业，这是中国银行监管部门批准的首批6家民营银行中的第一家。

    当局希望这些新的民营银行能增强市场在社会主义经济中的作用，这是2013年十二届全国人大会议做出的重要政策承诺。也正是在这次会议上，习近平当选中国国家主席，李克强当选国务院总理。随着中国大规模制造出口的传统经济模式失去动力，保持经济增长比以往任何时候都更为重要。

    据新华社报道，李克强总理亲自到深圳参加了微众银行的开业仪式，这足以凸显当局对于这些新型银行的重视。

    中国的银行业一直由大型国有银行主导，这些银行的贷款主要流向效率低下的国有企业。由于中国央行对存款利率设有上限，这些银行将贷款利率控制在较低水平（但去年年底为了帮助这些银行，存款利率限制有所放宽）。

    相比之下，更具活力的中小企业往往只能向规模庞大却缺乏监管的“影子银行”体系寻求资金。“影子银行”为存款人提供更高的回报，但缺少保障。

    由于目前大型银行面临不良贷款水平上升，其新增放贷能力受到限制，使得中小企业获得贷款尤为艰难。

    随着新一代银行的出现，今年银行业的面目必将发生显著改变。除了拥有微众银行30%股份的腾讯，阿里巴巴集团与香港上市的集团公司复星国际联手打造的一家互联网银行也获得了批准。

    腾讯和阿里巴巴过去都曾利用其互联网平台销售类似货币市场基金的“影子银行”产品。如今，在中国新推出的存款保险制度下，两家公司都能为存款人提供更高保障，这使得它们更有能力与工商银行、中国银行等有政府背景的银行争夺存款。

    监管机构去年底宣布，50万元以内的存款都将获得全额赔付。

    启动资本仅30亿元的微众银行不可能在一夜之间对国有银行的生存构成威胁。但是全球银行业都在日益向移动和互联网平台迁移，而这些具有互联网背景的新进入者在科技和企业文化上都拥有明显的竞争优势。

    最终，这将削弱中国的国有银行，特别是那些规模较小、在房地产或采矿业敞口较高的地方和区域银行。如何应对这一问题，将是对做出了自由市场承诺的中国政府的重要考验。（财富中文网）

    译者：Irene

    审稿：Vera Han

    China’s stock market may have opened 2015 with a roar, the wild rally in Shanghai continuing with a stunning 3.6% rise Monday.

    But away from the noise of financial markets, something that has the potential to be far more important is happening: the private sector is starting to open banks, opening vital new channels of finance to companies across the world’s second-largest economy.

    WeBank, an online-only bank backed by internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd TCEHY 1.53% , opened for business over the holiday, the first of six new projects approved by Chinese banking regulators.

    The authorities hope that new, privately-owned banks will play a big role in broadening the role of market forces in the Communist-ruled economy–the central policy pledge at the 12th National People’s Congress that installed Xi Jinping as president and Li Keqiang as premier in 2013. That’s more important than ever to sustaining economic growth as China’s traditional model, based on large-scale manufacturing exports, runs out of steam.

    In a sign of how much importance Beijing attaches to the new banks, Li himself attended WeBank’s opening ceremony in Shenzhen, according to the official news agency Xinhua.

    So far, China’s official banking sector has been dominated by big state-owned lenders who lend most to inefficient state-owned enterprises. They keep lending rates down by virtue of a state-controlled cap on deposit rates (albeit one that was relaxed at the end of last year in an effort to prop up the banks).

    By contrast, smaller and more dynamic companies are often forced to look for funds in a vast but weakly regulated ‘shadow banking’ sector, where savers can get higher returns but have little protection.

    Lending to small and medium-sized businesses is under particular threat at the moment as the big banks struggle with a rise in bad loans that is crimping their ability to extend new credit.

    With the arrival of the new generation of lenders, the face of the banking sector is set to change radically this year. In addition to Tencent, which owns 30% of WeBank, Alibaba Group BABA -2.51% has also gained approval for an online bank together with the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate Fosun International.

    Tencent and Alibaba have both used their online presence in the past to sell ‘shadow-banking’ products like money-market funds. Both will now be able to offer depositors the greater safety afforded by the country’s new deposit insurance scheme, making them more able to compete for deposits with government-backed giants such as ICBC and Bank of China.

    Regulators said at the end of last year that all deposits up to 500,000 yuan ($81,000) would be fully insured.

    With a start-up capital of only 3 billion yuan ($490 million), WeBank isn’t likely to pose an existential threat to the state banks overnight. However, banking across the globe is increasingly migrating to mobile and online platforms–a format where the new, internet-driven entrants have a clear competitive advantage both in technology and in business culture.

    Ultimately, that could weaken the country’s state-owned banks, especially smaller local and regional ones with high exposure to real estate or inefficient mining operations. Dealing with that kind of problem will be a major test of Beijing’s commitment to the free market.