China's shadow banks, increasingly wary of lending into a slowing economy, have turned to the stock market, fuelling a surge in unregulated margin lending that has driven the market's dizzying gains over the past year.
Now regulators are cracking down on shadow lending to stock investors, a campaign analysts say is partly to blame for last week's 13 per cent fall in the Shanghai Composite Index — the largest weekly drop since the global financial crisis in 2008.
"The price of funds has increased, the flow has shrunk, and transaction structures are getting more complicated," says a Chongqing-based shadow banker who provides grey-market loans to stock investors.
"We're no longer in a growth period. It's more like, feed the addiction until you die, earn fast money. No one treats this as their main career."
China officially launched margin trading by securities brokerages as a pilot project in 2010. It expanded the programme in 2012 with the creation of the China Securities Finance Corp, established by the state-backed stock exchanges specifically to provide funds for brokerages to lend to clients.
Official margin lending totalled Rmb2.2tn ($354bn) as of Wednesday's close, up from Rmb403bn a year earlier, according stock exchange figures. Yet this officially sanctioned margin lending, which is tightly regulated and relatively transparent, is only the tip of the iceberg for Chinese leveraged stock investing.
For standardised margin lending by brokerages, only investors with cash and stock worth Rmb500,000 in their securities accounts may participate. Leverage is capped at Rmb2 in loans for every Rmb1 of the investor's own funds, and only certain stocks are eligible for margin trading.
In the murky world of grey-market margin lending, however, few rules apply. Leverage can reach 5:1 or higher, and there are no limits on which shares investors can bet on.
The money for these leveraged bets comes mainly from wealth management products sold by banks and trust companies. WMPs, a form of structured deposit that banks market to customers as a higher-yielding alternative to traditional savings deposits, also spurred China's original shadow banking boom beginning in 2010.
Traditional WMPs are backed by credit assets such as bonds, loans and money-market instruments. Ultimately much of the funds have flowed to property developers and local-government infrastructure projects.
中國影子銀行對付在中國經濟放緩配景下發放貸款日趨當心，它們已轉向中國股市，令一些沒有遭到羈系的包管金貸款急劇增長。曩昔一年裏，這些包管金貸款推進中國股市猖狂上漲。
今朝，羈系機構正在襲擊對股市投資者的影子放貸征象。剖析師表現，此舉是上周上證綜指湧現13%跌幅的部門緣故原由，這是該指數2008年環球金融危急以來的最大單周跌幅。
一名向股市投資者供給灰色市場貸款的重慶影子銀行從業職員表現：“資金本錢已上升，資金流已縮水，生意業務構造正變得加倍龐雜。”
“咱們再也不位於增歷久。情形更像是在過把癮就死地賺快錢。沒人把這當主業。”
2010年，中國正式啟動了券商的融資融券營業試點。2012年，經由過程建立中國證券金融株式會社(China Securities Finance Corporation)，中國擴展了對該籌劃的實行力度。該公司由國有的證券生意業務所建立，專門賣力向券商供給資金以借給客戶。
依據證交所的數據，周三收盤時官方的融資融券余額共計為2.2萬億元國民幣(合3540億美元)，大大高於一年前的4030億元國民幣。但是，固然這類官方同意的融資融券營業羈系嚴厲並且相對於透明，但對付中國杠桿化的股市投資來講，它們實在只是冰山的一角。
對付券商展開的正規融資融券營業，只有證券戶頭上現金和股票代價50萬元國民幣以上的投資者才可以介入。投資者的杠桿上限為，每1元國民幣的自有資金，至多可以得到2元國民幣貸款。別的，只有特定股票才可用於融資融券生意業務。
但是，在包管金貸款灰色市場的陰郁天下裏，卻沒甚麽規矩可言。包管金貸款的杠桿可以到達5:1大概更高，投資者可如下註的股票也沒有限定。
這類杠桿化賭錢的資金，重要來自銀行和信任公司出售的理產業品。這類理產業品是銀行向客戶傾銷的一種構造化存款，作為傳統存款的高收益替換品，它還曾催生過2010年開端的中國最初的影子銀行高潮。
傳統理產業品的暗地裏，是債券、貸款和泉幣市場對象等信貸資產。很多資金終極都流向了房地產開辟商和處所當局基建項目。
市場價：HK$ 110
