More than 70 billion yuan (9.1 billion U.S. dollars) was transferred from
savings accounts in Shanghai to stock trading accounts in the first four months of
this year, the Shanghai branch of the People's Bank of China estimated on Saturday.
In April alone,
RMB-denominated savings deposits with Chinese banking
institutions decreased by 8.5 billion yuan (1.1 billion U.S. dollars).
"Given the continuous bullish stock market, the diversion of savings
deposits will persist for a good while yet," said an official with the Shanghai
branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Shanghai is
far from being an exception. The craze has challenged banking service facilities
in some areas.
In Changsha, capital city of central China's Hunan Province, a lady surnamed Wei found tens of thousands of
yuan of her money deposited at a local outlet of the China Construction Bank failed to be transferred when she was
in a hurry to buy in stocks at around 9:00 a.m. on April 30, the last trading
day before the week-long May holiday. Her money was safe but the bank's computer
crashed due to an overload of transfer requests.
A similar cases
occurred again with the China Construction Bank Changsha branch on May 8, the
first trading day after the holiday. Company sources said the bank is testing
new computer servers with a larger operating capacity.
The heavy inflow
of funds, strong corporate profits, and double-digit economic growth have helped
drive up the key Shanghai index by more than 51 percent this year after it
soared 130 percent last year.
In the first trading week after the May
Day holiday, the combined market value of the two bourses on the Chinese
mainland swelled by 4.97 percent from April 30 to 16.89 trillion yuan (2.2
trillion U.S. dollars).
Investors dived into the robust capital market.
It is reported that on May 8, the first trading day after the weeklong holiday,
the two bourses recorded the opening of 421,831 new stock trading accounts,
including 368,400 accounts for the A-share market. This brought the total number
of stock trading accounts on the two exchanges to 94.37 million.
According
to a monthly report jointly produced by Shanghai Securities Journal and Shenyin
Wanguo Securities, in April alone a record 250 billion yuan (32.5 billion U.S.
dollars) was added to the capital ready for stock trading, bringing the total on
the A-share market to 980 billion yuan (127.3 billion U.S dollars).
The
investment spree has aroused concern from the industry watchdog.
In a
notice released on Friday, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) urged stock
exchanges, securities dealers and related authorities to educate investors about
the risks of stock market investment.
These institutions must make
investors understand that stock markets are risky and they should be cautious in
entering the market, especially those who use all their savings or pawn their
apartments for loans to invest in stocks, the notice said.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)