Increasing regulatory scrutiny on Interbank Entrusted Payment
We provide Q&As to summarize the broad implications on China financials,
from our published report on the potential regulatory security on Interbank
Entrusted Payment (IEP) products (or domestic L/D, “Daifu”), which we
believe could have some risks on the near-term liquidity outlook,
depending on regulatory actions (see our Interbank IV report on Jan. 16).
Q1: What could be the regulatory options to curb IEP business?
We believe CBRC may have two options: 1) requiring entrust and entrusted
banks to properly charge capital and provisioning: additional credit costs will be
limited at c. 4bp, and the slowdown of IEP will be gradual; or 2) a worse case:
requiring banks to recognize them as normal loans that count credit quota,
which may lead to credit tightening, causing short-term liquidity squeeze for
corporate especially SMEs.
Q2: Will this change our gradual monetary loosening outlook?
We believe no, but it may make the loosening process more
volatile and longer. The IEP slowdown may slow down the sequential
qoq M2 growth in 1Q12 vs. a fast rebound in 4Q11 (but still much