China’s shadow banking is back in full swing

Central bank’s data showed off-balance sheet lending surged $109 bn in March

China’s shadow banking is back in full swing, an unintended side effect of the government’s campaign against financial leverage, which has curbed traditional lending and squeezed bond financing.

Data from the central bank Friday showed that off-balance sheet lending surged 754 billion yuan ($109 billion) in March, taking the first quarter’s total increase to a record 2.05 trillion yuan. Efforts by the People’s Bank of China to curb fresh lending may have prompted borrowers, especially real estate developers, to resort to alternative forms of financing, said Xu Gao, chief economist at Everbright Securities Co.

Since late last year, the PBOC and regulators have taken steps to rein in risks to China’s financial system, including raising short-term interest rates, clamping down on leverage in the bond market, and curbing funding for property speculation. The measures have sent debt-reliant borrowers scurrying to shadow financing, an industry Moody’s Investors Service estimates is worth about $8.5 trillion, and another area where regulators are trying to reduce risk.

“You must tread a fine line,” said Everbright’s Xu. “Choking the bond market to death doesn’t mean the financing needs will be curbed as well. Instead, it will drive funding to areas that are more unreachable for the regulators. At the end of the day, risks may be declining in the bond market, but in the overall financial system, they would be rising.”

The PBOC in January ordered the nation’s lenders to strictly control new loans in the first quarter of the year, putting a particular emphasis on mortgage lending to contain runaway home prices.

The move saw banks extending 4.22 trillion yuan of new loans in the first quarter, 8.5 per cent less than the same period in 2016. It was the first year-on-year decline since 2011. The government is trying to contain the possibility of a shock emanating from the property and construction industries, which contribute about 25 to 30 per cent of China’s economic output, Moody’s estimates.