[转帖] [2011.06.09] The pendulum swings again 峰回路转

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http://www.ecocn.org/thread-49838-1-1.html
Indian banks
印度银行

The pendulum swings again
峰回路转

China’s banking system is not a good model for India
中国的银行系统并不适合印度
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Jun 9th 2011 | MUMBAI | from the print edition


DURING India’s long experiment with socialist economics after gaining independence in 1947, many big industrial houses managed to survive as recognisably private firms. Banking, though, got it in the neck. “Major banks should be not only socially controlled, but publicly owned,” Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, announced on All India Radio in 1969. Nationalisation followed.

1947年独立后，印度展开了长期的社会主义经济实验。在此期间，许多大企业重组为私企后才存活下来。然而，银行业可没这样的运气。“大型银行不仅应有社会控制，还应由公众拥有，”时任首相甘地在1969年的全印电台讲话时如是说。紧随其后的就是银行国有化运动。

Today, after 20 years of liberalisation, state-run banks can sometimes look like they are in terminal decline. Some branches are literally rotten, their concrete walls covered in slime and window bars rusted. Yet the reality is quite different. The state sector still controls three-quarters of deposits, and since the financial crisis its share has crept up (see chart).

如今，在自由化20年后，表面看起来，国有银行正走在一条没落的路上。一些银行分支已经名副其实的“腐烂”了，它们的墙壁上覆盖着点点泥污，窗子上的护栏也已生锈。不过实际情况可不是这样。国有银行仍控制着3/4国内存款，且在金融危机中还有所上升（如图示）。

In 2008 and 2009 foreign banks, burned by bad consumer loans and shaken by events elsewhere, withdrew credit. Some private Indian banks slammed the brakes on, too, including the largest, ICICI, which faced rumours of insolvency—scurrilous, as it turned out, but gleefully repeated by at least one state-bank boss at the time. The public banks, meanwhile, and in particular State Bank of India (SBI), which has a fifth of the market, had an influx of deposits and undertook a lending splurge. SBI’s balance-sheet doubled between March 2007 and March 2011.

2008年和2009年，被消费者贷款坏账和其他冲击淹没的外国银行，紧缩了信贷。一些印度私有银行也遭遇了同样的冲击。这其中就包括印度最大的私有银行ICICI，当时有传言ICICI即将破产。虽然最终事实证明这不过是谣传，不过这一消息还是被一家国有银行的老板一再提及。同时公共银行，特别是占有1/5印度市场印度国家银行，却有大笔存款汇入并可随意支配。印度国家银行的账目平衡表在2007年三月到2011年三月之间翻了一番。

SBI insists that its expansion did not reflect a Chinese-style, government-directed effort to offset the global slump. Yet although they remain tiny compared with Chinese giants like ICBC and China Construction Bank, there is often more than a whiff of Beijing about the Indian state lenders. Their loan books are skewed towards more socially worthy projects; their bosses’ pay is modest; and they have a hybrid status as firms that are listed but have the state as a majority shareholder.

印度国家银行坚称它不会走中国式扩张道路，由政府主导的措施来应对全球冲击。然而，虽然和中国巨头（比如中国工商银行和中国建设银行）比起来还小得多，这些印度国有借贷方的作为确实和中国有一定程度的相似。其贷款向有社会价值项目倾斜；企业老板有适度的收益；另外，这些国有银行的身份并不明确，它们虽是上市公司，主要控股方却是政府。

The crisis led to a reddening of attitudes across the industry. The requirement that banks must hold up to about a quarter of their deposits in government bonds was no longer denounced as a racket to help fund the budget deficit but instead hailed as an enlightened form of liquidity management. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the central bank which regulates banking as well as setting interest rates, made clear its view that India’s approach was superior to the discredited Western models that it had long been told to adopt. It seemed as if India’s state-dominated system might not be a staging-post towards full liberalisation but instead the end destination.

这次危机使行业态度大为改观。每家银行的存款必须有至少1/4以政府债券的形式持有的要求，也不再被认为是政府为预算赤字圈钱的骗局，反而被看作一种有创意的流动性管理机制。对银行业作出整体调控并设定利率的印度中央银行——印度储备银行就明确指出，它的管理模式要优于遭受信用危机的西方模式，而这种模式正是外界一直要求自己采用的。看起来，印度的政府主导模式的发展方向不是完全的自由主义，而恰恰是相反的方向。

Yet recently things have shifted again. In May SBI’s new chairman announced dire results, with lower lending margins, provisions for pensions and extra charges taken against its loans. The hit, including forfeited profits, was some $2.5 billion, equivalent to over a tenth of the bank’s equity. Since its capital ratios are too low to support fast growth, SBI needs to raise more equity. That means persuading the government, which does not want its 59% stake diluted, to stump up: not an easy task.

然而最近，情况又有了新的变化。5月份印度国家银行新任主席宣布了一些令人沮丧的结果，这些结果是由放贷时更低的借贷边际，预留养老金和对贷款的额外收费带来的。这次冲击，包括被没收的利润在内，共有大概25亿美元，相当于银行十分之一的资产值。因其资本率太低，无法支持高速发展，印度国家银行必须提高其资产值才行。这就意味着银行要说服政府出这笔钱。面对不希望稀释其59%股份的政府，这不是件容易的工作。

With rates rising and the economy slowing, some fear more bad debts could emerge at the state banks that lent freely during the downturn. Meanwhile the private banks seem perkier, with their share of loans beginning to rise. ICICI’s chief executive, Chanda Kochhar, says that after two years of building more branches to suck in sticky deposits, the bank is “in a happy situation” and ready to start increasing credit again. Aditya Puri, the boss of HDFC Bank, which remains the darling of investors thanks to its metronomic performance, plans to keep expanding quickly, too. Other financial firms with banking licences, such as Kotak Mahindra, have been shifting towards the lending business and away from capital markets where profitability has fallen, partly thanks to a rush of foreign investment banks into India.

随着利率上升和经济发展速度减缓，有些人开始担心国有银行在衰退时大量放出的贷款可能会变成不良贷款。同时，随着贷款份额的不断上升，私有银行扬眉吐气的时候到了。ICICI执行总裁Chanda Kochhar称，在经过两年不断开枝散叶，吸收粘性存款后，该行正“处于一个令人高兴的处境”，并准备开始重新增加信贷。HDFC银行——鉴于其节拍器般的表现，该行已经成为投资者的宠儿——的老板Aditya Puri也正在计划迅速扩大其业务。其他一些拥有银行执照的金融公司如Kotak Mahindra已经开始将业务从利润率下降的资本市场（这和外国投资银行涌入印度有一部分关系）转向借贷业务。

Two reforms being flirted with by the RBI could make things more competitive. The first would offer foreign banks a deal by which they create proper subsidiaries in India (which should be easier to regulate) and direct more lending to priority areas such as agriculture. In return they will be allowed more branches. One foreign-bank boss reckons that India, much like China, will never allow foreign firms more than a 10% market share, but that would still be almost double current levels. Another is more optimistic, saying that the RBI’s stance is a “huge step”.

印度储备银行正在酝酿两项可以增强竞争性的改革。第一项是向外资银行提供一份会给印度带来适当补贴的合约，这份合约应便于调控，并把贷款引向优先发展领域，比如农业。作为回报，外资银行可以增加更多分支机构。一个外资银行老板认为，印度像中国一样，是不会允许外企占到10%以上市场份额的。不过即便是10%也已是当前水平的两倍。另一项改革更乐观些，称印度储备银行正要“向前迈出一大步。”

The RBI is also considering granting new banking licences to Indian-owned firms. There is some scepticism about the process. One Mumbai financial bigwig jokes that two licences will be granted—one, by the RBI, on the basis of competence, and the other by politicians in Delhi on the basis of bribe size. Still, the result should be an increase in the number of banks. India could end up allowing industrial conglomerates to own banks. That would put it at odds with most countries, where mixing business and banking is considered toxic, but would mean new entrants with financial muscle (although the butchest conglomerate of them all, Reliance Industries, said on June 3rd that it would not seek a licence).

同时，印度储备银行也在考虑向印有企业颁发新的银行执照。有些人对此行动表示怀疑。一位孟买金融巨擘戏言，两份执照将被颁发，一份来自印度储备银行，以鼓励竞争；另一份则来自德里的政客，以鼓励行贿。即便情况真的如此，这也将带来银行数目的增加。印度最终将允许工业企业集团拥有自己的银行。这虽然在很多国家看来都很奇怪，因为在那里，人们并不赞同将企业和银行糅合在一起。但是，这么做还是会给金融行业带了一些新鲜血液（尽管其中最大的企业集团Reliance Industries已在6月3日表态不会寻求执照）。

Over the next year private banks will almost certainly win back market share. Farther out, the Beijing model of banking is in any case probably beyond the capacity of the cash-strapped Indian state. Loans are only about a third of India’s GDP compared with over 100% in China. The private sector will be needed to provide the capital to support more credit. Nor can India seal off its financial system to the same extent as China. Its businesses are internationalising faster, and its persistent current-account deficit and bad infrastructure mean it badly needs foreign investment.

在接下来这一年，私有银行几乎可以确定要赢回市场份额。中国的银行模式不管从哪方面说都超出了资本流动受限的印度的运营能力。在中国，贷款占GDP的比例超过了100%，而印度只有30%。私有部门需要为增加资本提供更多信贷。另外，印度也不能像中国那种程度的封闭自己的金融系统。印度的企业正在加速国际化，而且持续的经常项目赤字和糟糕的基建水平意味着它急需外国投资。

As a matter of both preference and necessity, then, Indian’s banking system will become more linked with the world. Its resilience during the crisis partly reflected its competence, but also its insularity and underdevelopment. But if India’s economy is to rival China’s by size, its financial sector needs to become less, not more, like the Middle Kingdom’s.

不管是从偏好，还是从必要性来说，印度的银行系统都要更多的和世界联系起来。其在金融危机中表现出来的适应能力，部分显示了它的竞争力；不过同时也显示了它的孤立和欠发达。但如果印度想在经济规模上赶上中国，其金融部门需要更加远离，而不是更接近中国的模式。