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BoCom's mortgage loan volume down on curbs

By Kelvin Wong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-23 09:39

A man covers his eyes at a real estate fair in Shenyang, Liaoning province. The Bank of Communications says it won't allow borrowers to take on mortgage payments that would consume more than half of their monthly income.[China Daily]

Further decline likely if tightening measures from govt continue

HONG KONG - Bank of Communications Co (BoCom), China's fourth-largest publicly traded lender, said it made fewer mortgage loans in February and March as the government seeks to rein in lending and curb property speculation.

"We have had an obvious drop in volume over the last two months," Dicky Yip, an executive vice-president at BoCom, said in Shanghai on Thursday. He declined to give loan-volume figures.

China's bank regulator has told the nation's larger banks to conduct quarterly stress tests on property loans and ensure risks are strictly controlled. Chinese banks extended a less-than-estimated 510.7 billion yuan ($74.8 billion) of new loans in March after the central bank told lenders to set aside larger reserves and pace credit growth.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development this week ordered developers not to take deposits for sales of uncompleted apartments without proper approval. That added to curbs on loans for third-home purchases, increased down-payment requirements and higher mortgage rates announced in the past week, after property prices in 70 cities jumped a record 11.7 percent in March.

Yip said the tightening measures would have a limited impact on BoCom because the bank focuses on borrowers making their first home purchases.

BoCom doesn't allow borrowers to take out mortgages that would cost more than half of their monthly income in payments, Yip said. Loan volume may fall further if the government asks banks to tighten this further, he said.

"We may start feeling more pressure if the government raises the requirement on borrowers' affordability," he said. "So far it doesn't look like that's something they will be changing soon."

BoCom shares fell 0.87 percent to HK$9.1 ($1.18) in Hong Kong on Thursday, cutting this year's gain to 1.2 percent. In Shanghai, the stock fell as much as 4.93 percent.

China's economy grew 11.9 percent in the first quarter, the most in almost three years, fanning concern that record lending is creating asset bubbles. The government has twice this year told banks to set aside more reserves and pace credit growth.

Yip, formerly the head of China for HSBC Holdings Plc, is in charge of BoCom's retail banking business. He joined the bank in 2005 after the United Kingdom based-company bought a stake in the lender and he still holds a non-executive position at HSBC.

Chinese banks offered 2 trillion yuan ($293 billion) of new loans to the real estate sector in 2009, including property development and home mortgages, fourfold the amount offered in the same period in 2008, according to the People's Bank of China.

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