China has revisited its risk capital requirements and tightened the norms for recognizing and provisioning for the non performing loan assets. In September 2008, for all the listed banks, only 2 percent of loans were classified as non-performing. In 2003, the foreign investment limit was hiked, from 15% to 20%, and the banks fulfilled the norms for Initial Public Offerings. This helped them to meet the norms of higher capital adequacy. Listing at stock exchanges helped improve transparency and accountability. Continuation of reforms along with strengthening of banking regulations with the establishment of the China Banking Regulatory Commission helped the consolidation of a healthy banking system.
The China banking Regulatory Commission is effective in tackling excessive political interference by local governments and control loans distributed to high risk sectors. However, it has also affected the banks’ ability to formulate independent business strategy with regard to loan approval to specific sectors and interest rates.
China, in the nineties, embarked on a journey of privatization and efficiency by transferring factory control from communist party to factory managers. Some of the smaller banks and other state enterprises were sold to private entities and individuals. Organizational transformation of banks as businesses began on a modest scale and China took up WTO membership. Gigantic FDI flow led to accelerated economic growth. The banking arrangement ensured that credit is continuously flowing toward bottleneck sectors, improving the liquidity of the whole economy. Stability of currency and export competitiveness has helped sustainable growth of the banking industry too.
The core of China’s strength lies in development centric ideology and the culture of collaboration in reviewing policies and systems. Funds from mobilized savings in the banking and postal system are channeled to productive public uses, determined and prioritized by central policy. There is also a moral and ethical dimension to its continued superiority, which is aimed at international primacy.
Strategic foreign investors such as Bank of America and AFH (Asian Financial Holdings) holding 14% stake in CCB, in joint ventures and alliances, have enriched the product offerings and services with diversification. Foreign indebtedness is low and risks negligible due to high domestic content of public debt and huge kitty of foreign exchange reserves. The corporate culture of high savings has enabled a generation of internal accruals for investment, needed for the expansion rate seen in China. Economic cooperation and relationship with a large number of emerging market countries has helped Chinese banks to grow.
This appears to be a near term and long term challenge and more compelling compared to other cyclical issues such as Non performing loans and concerns of Wealth management funds offered by poorly regulated trust entities.
The sheer size of the economy and inter-connectivity as well as the linkages of domestic demand are important strengths of Chinese banks. Over half of the banking sector assets are owned by the big four state owned banks, which have remained fully liquid during the 2008 recession, driving a robust economic growth for a number of years. Thus China became the second largest economy in the world, after the United States.
Following are the big four commercial banks of China:
For rural banking needs Agricultural Bank of China;(ABC)
For funding industrial requirements, ICBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China;
For infrastructure and construction, (PCBC) People’s construction bank of China; and
For currency trading and international trade, Bank of China (BOC).
In 2008, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China became the world’s largest bank in terms of market capitalization. Ownership diversification due to restructuring helped the banks in improving their credibility worldwide. In addition, a large number of credit cooperatives supplement the role of commercial banks.