Banking sector achieves goal of risk control

The chief of China's top banking regulator said on July 31 that the banking sector has achieved its risk control goal in the first half of 2013, with growth in some financial products slowed and loan risks in a few target sectors under control.

In the January-June period, loans via local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), wealth management products (WMPs), as well as businesses of trust companies all grew at a slower pace, said Shang Fulin, president of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).

By the end of June, outstanding loans via LGFVs stood at 9.7 trillion yuan ($1.57 trillion), up 6.2 percent year-on-year. The growth rate was 9 percentage points lower than the average growth rate for all categories of banking loans, the CBRC data show.

The balance for WMPs came at 9.08 trillion yuan by the end of June, with non-standard credit assets totaling 2.78 billion yuan, 7 percent short of the level recorded in late March, when the CBRC released a notice on regulating the WMP business of the country's commercial banks.

The balance of trust assets totaled 9.45 trillion yuan, with monthly growth rates gradually slowing from 5.2 percent in January to 0.44 percent in June.

Shang also said that credit risks for certain sectors have been put under effective control. By the end of June, commercial banks' non-performing loans (NPL) stood at 539.5 billion yuan, representing an NPL rate of 0.96 percent.

The real estate sector's new loans in the first half also demonstrated a better structure, with the proportion of loans extended for property development dropping to 24.55 percent and that for personal home purchases rising to 74.17 percent.

Meanwhile, bank liquidity has returned to normal levels, according to the CBRC. The loan-to-deposit ratio stood at 72.43 percent, with the reserve requirement ratio kept above 20 percent as of the end of June.

China's bank regulator has moved to tighten regulation over some financial services to dissolve risks in the country's shadow banking system amid the central government's call to guard against financial risks.

In June, China's banking sector experienced a liquidity crunch that sent interbank rates to double digits, which some analysts believed to be the pain resulted from the country's economic deleveraging.