【出版时间及名称】:2010年1月韩国金融行业研究报告
【作者】:BNP百富勤
【文件格式】:pdf
【页数】:40
【目录或简介】:
Industry outlook
Last year can be described as a time when banks and the
government scrambled to avoid major disasters as the global
credit crisis spread within developed markets, threatening the
viability of the Korea economy as well. We credit the Korean
government for acting quickly to events (largely due to the
experience gained from the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis) to
identify problem areas, figure out what was needed to be done
and providing liquidity to both the banking system and its
customers. At the same time, we believe the threat to the
recovery phase of 2010 for banks is the overzealousness of
regulations, which could possibly impede growth. However, so
far, we think Korea has come out of the dark days of 2009 with
flying colours.
A year in review
Since the global credit crisis began in 4Q08, Korean banks
started to de-leverage due to excessive lending to the SME
sector, which began in 2005, and a simultaneous slowdown of
economic growth. Back in 4Q08, the market contemplated
worst-case scenarios as SMEs were vulnerable to sudden
changes in economic outlook, due to the export-dependent
economy. Commentators thought Korea was in jeopardy. This
view was largely reflected in bank valuations where forward
PBV multiples came down as low as 0.4x during 4Q08 to 1Q09.
During this time, however, the government initiated several
programs to stabilize/boost economic growth as well as to fortify
the health of the banking sector. Programs included:
1 The signing of an MOU between banks and the
government to ensure continued credit to SMEs
(November 2008). Banks had to maintain at least 38% of
total credit to SMEs in return for assistance of US dollars
that were scarce following the bankruptcy of Lehman
Brothers. The government successfully signed a three-way
swap line agreement between US, China and Japan for
USD20b each to source USD, when needed, to rollover
forex debt. At the end of 1Q09, when USD started to flow
more on a global basis, Korea used less than USD20b of
the USD60b swap facility. Also, most of this USD20b has
been repaid to originators (mostly the US).
2 The government budgeted an extra KRW30t as
supplementary budget to provide fiscal stimulus for
creating jobs and to boost domestic consumption (1Q09).
Additionally, the government announced an additional
KRW40t for investments into green energy sectors as well
as the build out of the four-canal project. The KRW70t
supplementary fiscal spending plans represented 7.7% of
GDP, while US, China and Japan’s represented between
16% and 18% at that time.
3 The National Assembly approved Korea Asset
Management Corp’s (KAMCO) KRW40t bad-debt buyout
fund (June 2009). KAMCO’s current budget is KRW20t and
has begun to buy NPLs from smaller unlisted savings
banks as well as listed commercial banks. The FSS/FSC
has mandated an annualized reported NPL ratio close to
1.0% by the end of this quarter for banks. Banks are now
selling NPLs to third parties, including Korea Asset
Management Corporation (KAMCO, with a KRW2t budget),
private equity funds and other global investment
banks/asset managers.
4 The FSS/FSC has raised the bar for Tier one capital at the
bank subsidiary level to 9% from the previous guideline of
7% (December 2008). From 4Q08 to 1Q09, banks under
our coverage raised KRW16.9t in the form of subordinated
debt, hybrids or common shares to boost Tier 1 close to or
above 10% as of 3Q09.