Chinese banks:Stepped-up MPA implementation
As reported by Caixin on 11 March 2017, the PBOC has imposed penalties onthree city banks, including Bank of Ningbo, Bank of Guiyang and Bank ofNanjing, for breaking Macro Prudential Assessment (MPA) rule by growingbroader credit too fast. Specifically, Bank of Ningbo and Bank of Guiyang weredisqualified for the prime dealership of open market operations of the PBOC for2017, while Bank of Nanjing was suspended from borrowing MLF from PBOCfor three months. According to Caixin report, the penalties were mainly due torapid broader credit expansion of these banks, for which the PBOC caps at35% yoy. Broader credit includes not only bank loans, but also banks’ bondinvestments, equity and other investments, reverse repos, and deposits at nondepositoryFIs. In addition, off-balance sheet WMP will be included startingfrom 1Q17. The impact on these three banks is likely to be higher funding cost.
For example, there were only 48 prime dealers among China’s 3,000+ banksthat have access to PBOC’s open market operations directly, which incurslower funding cost than borrowing from other banks.