Asian banks

Asian Banking
UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI
ACADEMIC YEAR
2006-2007
SHRI CHINAI COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND ECONOMICS
ANDHERI (EAST), MUMBAI: 400091
PROJECT REPORT ON
ASIAN BANKS
(Emerging Developments in Growth, Structure and Efficiency)
PROJECT GUIDE
PROF.EKNATH BIRARI
SUBMITTED BY
SAVIO DCOSTA
T.Y.B.COM (BANKING AND INSURANCE)
SEMESTER-V
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Asian Banking
Acknowledgement
It gives me an enormous pleasure in submitting the project of
Asian Banking-Emerging Developments in Growth, Structure and
Efficiency.
I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Prof.
Eknath Birari my project guide, for extending their support,
guidance and co-operation which helped me in completing this
project successfully. I would also like to thank Prof. Nishikant Jha
for their kindly support and encouragement throughout my project
to complete the project in time.
I am also thankful to our college as well as our college
librarian for availing me the required books on Asian Banking who
have made my efforts into success by giving me all the possible
help and support in my project. I am also thankful to Sachin sir for
availing me the computer lab whenever needed regarding my
project.
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Asian Banking
DECLARATION
I, SAVIO DCOSTA student Of T.Y.B.Com (Banking &
Insurance) Shri Chinai College of Commerce & Economics
(semester V
th
) hereby declare that I have completed this
project on ASIAN BANKS in the academic year 2006-
2007 .The information submitted is true and original to the
best of my knowledge.
Signature of the student
(SAVIO DCOSTA)
CERTIFICATE
I, Prof.EKNATH BIRARI hereby certify that SAVIO DOSTA
student of T.Y.B.Com (Banking & Insurance) Shri Chinai
College of Commerce & Economics (Semester V
th
) has
completed project ASIAN BANKS in the academic year
2006-2007.The information submitted is true and original
to the best of my knowledge.
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Asian Banking
Signature of
Project guide
Executive Summary
“Asian Banks have a good track of services and well developed facilities which has
lead to tremendous growth, structure and efficiency of the banks through their
performance and their potential to handle the risks”.
Objective
My prime objective was to know about the dynamics of Asian banking sectors and
the emerging developments in growth, structure and the efficiency of the Asian banks.
Sub-Objective
To learn the Asian banking more particularly from the point of view of one of the
Indian bank operating in Asia Like ICICI which got the award for the “Best Managed
Bank in Asia”, in a poll by Euro money for their excellence performance.
Secondary Data:
Books – Global Banking – Asia-Pacific Region - By Kasturi Rao
–Asian Banking Crisis - By ICFAI UNIVERSITY
Journals – Reports on the banks performance in Asia (ICICI Bank)
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Asian Banking
ICICI – Articles
Findings
Studying the Asian Banking and more particularly its growth, structure and
efficiency one can say that the Asian banks are also emerging as strong banks in all their
prospects in order to gain international standard through which they can give very tough
competition to the international banks.
Learning
Asian banks are on growing phase and they are trying to develop their banking
system so well to operate their functions globally also. Few years from now these banks
are going to operate all over the world through their well developed technology and
efficiency in their banking functions.
Index
Sr. No. Topics Page No.
SESSION-I
1 Asian Banking - Part I 1
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Asian Banking
Introduction 2
Domestic Credit provided by Banking in Asia 4
Non Performing to Total Loans Banks in Asia 10
Emerging Issues in Asian Banks 12
Growth of Personal Banking in Asia 13
SESSION-II
2 Asian Banking - Part II 15
Growth of Online Banking in Asia 16
Consolidation 17
The Pace of Bank Consolidation in Asia 18
Issues and Imperatives 18
Steps taken to Restrict Banking Crisis 21
SESSION-III
3 East Asian Banking Restructuring and
Regulation Industrial Policy
23
Introduction 24
Facts/Changes in East Asian banking 27
History of banking in Japan 29
History of banking in Korea 34
Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 39
Comparison between Japan and Korea 41
SESSION-IV
4 Chinese Banks: On the Reforms Path 43
Introduction 43
Banking Reforms 44
Interest Rate Policy 45
Behest Lending 46
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Non-performing loans 47
Monetary policies of the Central Bank 49
SESSION-V
5 Bank Of China 52
Introduction 53
A Watershed Year, 2001 53
Treasury Operations 55
Investment Banking 56
Risk Management 57
Corporate Governance 57
The Business Strategy and Performance 58
6 Case Study 59
7 Conclusion 66
8 Annexure 68
9 List of acronyms 69
10 Bibliography 70
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List of Tables
Sr.
No.
Topic Page
No.
1 Country Domestic Credit provided by Banking in Asia 6
2 Country Domestic Credit provided by Banking in Asia 9
3 Asian Banks: Emerging Issues in Asian Banks 13
4 Facts / Changes in East Asian banking 27
5 Brief history of banking in Japan 32
6 Brief history of banking in Korea 37
7 Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 40
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8 Behest Lending 47
9 Non-performing loans 48
10 Treasury Operations 55
11 As Island of High Wage Earners 63
12 Priority Sector Credit 64
Asian Banking - Part I
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Asian Banking
 Introduction
 Country Domestic Credit provided by
Banking in Asia
 Non Performing Loans to Total Loans:
Banks in Asia
 Emerging Issues in Asian Banks
 Growth of Personal Banking in Asia
Introduction
Among the emerging economies, Asian banking is the most energetic
and expanding one. In the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis, banks in
South East Asia were the worst to get affected, but they are clawing back
with aggressive pace, quite often strongly supported by their governments.
Despite impressive growth of capital markets in the Asian region, banking
remains a strong anchor supporting economic growth.
There are three major aspects of Asian banking. I.e. Growth, Structure
and Efficiency. Growth depicts the growth of banking activity in the region;
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Asian Banking
Structure describes features such as who owns banking and Efficiency
profiles the recent operational performance of banks across the Asian region.
In all these aspects suitable comparisons with banking systems in other
emerging economies is also done.
Asia has a strong banking presence. Banking industry is spread across
the major regions in the world. In the emerging economies, Asia has the
largest number of deposits taking institutions and banks, despite closure of a
fairly large number of institutions following the 1997 economic crisis. The
size of banking assets in Asia is more than the double that of Latin America
and several times larger than that of central Europe. Its capital ratios are
fairly higher.
In emerging economies, banking sector is the single most important
source of finance for corporate in the private sector. During the five year
period, 1997-2001, of the total corporate domestic funding for the private
sector in major emerging markets, a large chunk (63%) came from bank
loans, though the share of domestic bonds (22%) has been growing more
rapidly than the equities (15%). In respect of international funding too, bank
lending (41%) dominates bonds (37%) and equities (22%). This trend is also
evident in the private sector domestic funding in the Asia Region where
bank loans are the prominent source (78%) of funding but the share of
equities (12%) are more than bonds (10%). In international funding for Asia
region, all these three are proportionally represented in respect of the public
sector funding.
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Asian Banking
However, it is the bonds that are most prominent both in domestic
(91%) and international (73%) sources as compared to other regions, bank
loans, as a source of funding in the Asian region is more than other regions.
For both the sectors bonds have contributed significantly in funding to the
extent of 69%, followed by bank loans with 26% and equities 5%. Another
evidence to show that the growth of banking is more stronger in Asia than
the capital market could be evidenced from the fact that domestic private
credit as a ‘%’ of GDP in Asia grew from 90.6% in 1996 to 113.7% in
2002, where as equity market capitalization inched from 64.8% to 71.9%
and total bonds outstanding from 31.4% to 48.7%. More than 40% of the
world’s population still lives in countries in which the majority of bank
assets are in majority-owned state banks. Government ownership tends to be
greater in poor countries. Total assets of banking system is about one third
of all countries is smaller than $1 billion; another third have banking
systems smaller than $10 billion.
Asian banking showed significant growth in the last three decades.
Domestic credit provided by banking as a percent of GDP, reflects the
significance of the banking sector in the economy. It is evident that Asian
economies has showed the largest growth in this ratio, and always growing
in contrast to the banking systems in other emerging economies. Bank Credit
and GDP ratio growth was much faster and spectacular in East and South
East Asia as compared to South Asia, as most of the countries in South Asia,
namely India and Sri-Lanka have only made marginal gains in this ratio
during the decade of the 90’s where as in the countries like Pakistan this
ratio was actually failed and Bangladesh perhaps scored well in the South
Asian region in this regard. Despite several economic crisis that plagued the
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entire East Asian region, this ratio remained high. This was an evident in the
growth of the banking system as well.
Country Domestic Credit provided by Banking in Asia
More than 40% of the world’s population still lives in countries,
which the majority of bank assets are in majority owned state banks.
Government ownership tends to be greater in poorer countries; Arguments in
favor of state control are-
(a) Better allocation of capital.
(b) Private ownership may restrict access to banking sectors for many parts
of the society.
(c) Private banking is more crisis prone.
Achievements of the goals of the state ownership have been elusive.
Greater ownership of banks to associate with higher interest rate spreads,
less private credit, less activity on the stock exchange, and less non-blank
credit, even after controlling for many other factors. One study revealed that
countries that had greater state ownership of banks in 1970s tended to grow
more slowly since then with lower productivity, especially in poor countries.
Asian banking is significantly either state owned or family owned.
This is also one of the biggest challenges facing the Asian banking system in
the background of globalization and financial liberalization which envisages
holding of greater share of banking assets by foreign entities. In the last two
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Asian Banking
decades, ownership of the banks in China has been predominantly state-
owned barely changed. Even in India, where both public and private sector
co-exist, a large chunk of it is owned by the former.
While state-ownership is predominant in some countries, family
ownership is sizeable in some others. State and family ownership are not
particularly viewed favorably from the point of view of emerging
international financial policy that puts greater thrust on promoting private
sector with greater responsibilities on corporate governance in terms of
transparency and disclosure. A great deal of pressure is being mounted on
this type of ownership by international and domestic policy to transform into
a more responsible and accountable. This is explained with the help of
following table.
Family Country Bank Stake
(%)
The Koo family(Koos
Group)
Taiwan China trust 10
The Tsai family(Fubon
Group)
Taiwan Fubon Commercial
Bank
15
The Wu family(Shing Knog
Group)
Taiwan Taishin International
Bank
15
The Fung family Hong
Kong
Wing Hang Bank 32
The Wu family Hong
Kong
Wing Lung Bank 43
The Wong family Hong
Kong
Dah Sing Bank 38
The Li family Hong
Kong
Bank of East Asia 40
The Wee family Singapore United Overseas Bank 32.1
The Lee family Singapore Overseas-Chinese
Banking Corporation
22.7
The Lien family Singapore Overseas Union Bank 15.7
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Azman Hashim Malaysia Arab-Malaysian
Merchant Bank
8.4
The Kwek family (Hong
Kong Group)
Malaysia Hong Leong Credit 71.7
The Hong Piow Malaysia Public Bank 28
Rashid Hussain Malaysia RHB Bank 23.9
Tan Teong Hean Malaysia Southern Bank 22
Sophonpanich family Thailand Bangkok Bank 15
Lamsam family Thailand Thai Farmers Bank 10
One of the views that were put increasingly by international financial
policy as a better option to reduce the state and family ownership to
encourage ownership of financial institutions by foreign entities. Since many
of the foreign banks taking state in domestic banking systems comes from
the mature economies with fairly standardized and stringent regulatory
norms, it is envisaged that the greater share of foreign ownership will bring
in greater transparency and efficiency in the domestic banking systems.
There are however serious concerns in many emerging economies on the
entry and expansion of foreign banks. Arguments against foreign banks have
destabilized the local financial system and has putted local financial out of
business etc., However there is no hard evidence of local presence of foreign
banks in this regard. 1990s have been remarkable in enhancing the presence
of foreign banks.
For instance in Central Europe, the proportion of bank assets
controlled by foreign owned banks rose from 8% in 1994 to 56% in 1999. In
some Latin American countries, almost one-half of the total bank assets are
now controlled by foreign institutions.
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Asian Banking
Major factors inducing the growing pace of foreign ownership of
banks are; globalization of financial services, lower costs of information and
communication that lead to greater economies of scale to expand
internationally, surges in telephone and internet banking in which foreign
banks are already market savvy. Using bank level data for 80 countries for
1988-1995, Claessens, Demirguc-Kunt, and Huizinga of the World Bank,
have examined the extent of foreign ownership in national banking markets
on the basis of net interest margins, overhead, taxes paid, and profitability of
foreign and domestic banks. It is found that in developing countries foreign
banks tends to have greater profits, higher interest margins, and higher tax
payments than domestic banks. Increase in the foreign share of bank
ownership has reduced the profitability and overhead expenses in
domestically owned banks. Local bank competition gets affected more on
the entry of foreign banks rather than after gaining a substantial stake.
Foreign control of domestic banks in Asia has not been that particularly
easy. Attempt to sell Seoul Bank to HSBC failed, In Malaysia in 1950s the
foreign banks had controlled of assets to the tune of 94 %, which is
drastically reduced now. Prior to the financial crisis of 1997, Thailand has
been relatively closed to foreign banks but this situation is gradually
changing. China has withdrawn the sale of Shenzhen Bank, which is almost
finalized to a foreign private capital group. Though Thailand increased the
limit of foreign ownership from 25% to 100% and several others made
significant relaxations in foreign.
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Asian Banking
Despite a series of liberalization measures on most of the Asian
countries the share of foreign ownership in banks is rather limited. In India
post-liberalization the number of foreign banks expanded rapidly.
An interesting perspective of Indian banking provides that with the
positive intervention of the State, turnaround in banking sector could be
gradual but more concerted, though how far this strategy will be sustainable
is a big question. Bank wise shares of total assets in India for the year ended
March 2002 showed that Nationalized banks account for 46% of assets and
42% of net profits, State Bank Group accounts for 29.3% of assets and
29.8% of net profits, Old Private Sector banks account for 6.1% of assets
and 8.7% of net profit where foreign banks account for 7.2% of assets and
12.9% of net profit where as new private sector banks account for 11.4% of
assets but only 6.7% of net profit. This is explained with the help of
following table.
*All years figures are in Percentages
Country 1997
*
1998
*
1999
*
2000
*
2001
*
2002*
India 0.7 0.8 0.5 0.7 0.6 0.8
Indonesia ___ -19.9 -9.1 0.1 0.8 1.8
Korea -0.9 -3.3 -1.3 -0.6 0.8 0.8
Malaysia ___ ___ 1.1 1.1 0.8 ___
Pakistan -1.2 0.5 -0.2 -0.2 0.5 ___
Philippines 1.7 0.8 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.7
Thailand -0.8 -5.1 -5.4 -1.6 -0.2 0.7
Memorandum Items
United States 1.3 1.1 1.3 1.2 1.1 1.4
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Japan 0.0 -0.6 -0.5 0.2 0.0 -0.4
Canada 0.7 0.5 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.5
United Kingdom 0.9 0.8 1.0 0.9 0.6 0.7
The data published by the International Monetary Fund, for the year
2002, shows that the median ROA is highest in Central Europe(1.4%),
followed by Latin America(1.3%) and Asia(0.8%). Asia showed sizeable
recovery since 1997, when its ROA was -0.8% that fell further in the next
year to -1.4%, but has been gradually recovered since then to reach 0.8% by
the year 2002. The Differences in the ROA of banks in Asian economies are
measured by the standard deviation which was at 8% in 1998 gradually
declined to 0.5% by 2002. India has been maintaining a ROA of about
0.5% to 0.8% throughout the six year where as Indonesia showed rapid
improvement in the last two years. Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and
Thailand too showed gradual recovery in the ROA in the last two years.
Recovery of bank revenues is evident across the region. If the SAARS does
not continue to be a major problem threatening China and East Asia, with
the growth prospects currently foresee, banking industry in Asia could see
further growth in the immediate term. However, Risk management will be
very crucial to realize and sustain gains. Median levels of Non Performing
Assets of Asian Banks in 2002 remained more or less similar what it was six
years ago. It does not mean that bad-debts stopped growing in these banks,
but they have managed to bring down from about a median level of 20% that
they have reached in 1998. The latest data puts bad-debts of Asian banks at
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10.3% of the assets, similar to Latin America but 2% points than Eastern
Europe.
Non Performing Loans to Total Loans: Banks in Asia
Non Banks in Emerging economies have always been prone to crisis.
From 1980 to 1995 more than three-quarters of the members of the
International Monetary Fund have experienced a serious and costly banking
crisis. In 69 of these countries, losses exhausted the net worth of the entire
banking systems. The cost of saving the banking system was around
10% to 50% of the GDP. The experience of the last three decades shows that
banking systems are prone to crisis, and these could happen in both rich and
poor countries. But the ability of the emerging countries in swinging back to
the strength and sustainability is an issue that continuously bothers
international finance regulation from the point of view of stability and
sustainability. Poverty rates rose faster from about 25% to 40% in Indonesia,
from 15% to 25% in Korea and 10% to 15% in Thailand in the aftermath of
the financial crisis. Most of the Asian economies in the late 1990s have
experienced several and intense crisis in the banking sector along with
currency crisis and major imperative emerging from this experience are that
banks should be particularly careful in not only managing risk but also
strategies for overcoming and combating the effect of contagion. Banking
crisis in some countries not only wiped off their entire net worth but also
cost the governments almost the size of the GDP to put them back in the
business.
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One encouraging feature is that the banking systems across all the
regions in emerging economies possess capital adequacy levels that are
considered safe and sound. The median levels of capital adequacy levels in
banks in Asia, Latin and Central Europe are around 10% and these have
been consistently showing improvement. Korea in the Asian region tops the
regulatory capital as a percent to risk weighted assets, a trend which is
evident in most of the countries, in particular Philippines, Malaysia etc..,
Capital adequacy levels in Asian countries are much higher even compared
to the banking systems in the matured economies. Indonesia, Philippines,
Thailand, Pakistan remain at higher levels, the problem of which could be
further compounded by any setbacks in the economy either owing to the
developments in the domestic sector or international economy. In India in
the last six years this capital adequacy ratio hovered around 10% to 11% and
given the subdued growth of assets, which remained pretty significant.
Despite the overall improvement in various aspects of operational
efficiency, the financial strength of banking systems remains a matter of
great concern. The median level Moody’s financial strength index for Asia
in 2002 stood at 16.7% as against 30.2% for Eastern Europe, 20.9% for
Latin America. The position of India is much above the Asian average but as
compared to the banking systems in mature economies (excepting Japan), it
is far lower.
Asian Banks: Emerging Issues in Asian Banks
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Recent trends in banking across the world, which is evident in Asian
banking, are-
(a) Growth of personal banking and credit.
(b)Corporate increasing accessing bond markets for their resource
requirements increasing use of technology and growth of online banking.
(c) Shifts in revenue stream from being interest income based to fee based
and a greater degree of consolidation to achieve economies of scale. A
brief discussion on each of these is given below.
Country 2001(%) 2002(%)
India 25.8 27.5
Indonesia 1.7 5.4
Korea 14.2 16.7
Malaysia 30.4 31.7
Pakistan 2.1 5.0
Philippines 17.5 20.4
Thailand 15.8 15.8
Memorandum Items
United States 77.1 75.0
Japan 16.7 12.9
Canada 77.1 75.0
United Kingdom 83.8 83.8
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Growth of Personal Banking
Asian banks have experienced enormous growth in personal banking
in the recent period fuelled by expansion in household credit, online
banking, credit cards etc., In Korea, household credit now accounts for about
half of the total outstanding bank loans and this trend was evident in several
other Asian economies. In China as per the recent report of the Lehman
Brothers, mortgage and consumer credit in China grew by 70% in 2001 and
already reached 10% of the total bank loan outstanding. Korea, Thailand,
Malaysia, Taiwan and Philippines experienced growth in credit cards in the
range of 20% in 2002 and China’s credit card market is expected to grow
around 75% to 100% in the next three years. In Korea value of credit debt
now accounts for about 16% of the total household borrowing and about
11% of the total private credit outstanding. In 2002, Value of credit card
debt outstanding has registered a growth of 47% in Korea, 34% in
Philippines, 30% in Thailand, 28% in Taiwan, 21% in Malaysia and as a
percentage of total domestic credit, it ranges from 3% in Malaysia to 11% in
Korea.
Growth in the household credit/personal loans was further accentuated
by a number of relief measures announced by the governments to promote
housing loans, use of credit cards and supplemented by additional measures
announced by banks such as fee waivers, higher credit limits etc., With the
growth of personal banking and household credit, banks are transforming
from a ‘transaction-based activities to process based activities’ that
requires sophistication in risk management. While growth of personal loans
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is expanding consumerism in many Asian economies, which is fine for the
regional economies.
Asian Banking - Part II
 Growth of Online Banking in Asia
 Consolidation
 The Pace of Bank Consolidation in Asia
 Issues and Imperatives
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Asian Banking
 Steps taken by Asian banks to Restrict
Banking Crisis
Growth of Online Banking
Online banking is expanding at rapid rate in Asian economies.
According to the recent report released by AC Nielsen Online. Active online
banking population in the five major Asian economies of South Korea, Hong
Kong, Singapore, China and Taiwan, grew 63% in 2001 taking the regional
total from 6.5 million to 10.6 million during 2000-2001. The report also
shows that 38% of regular internet users across now use online banking
services, compared to 29% a year ago and 16% two years ago. South Korea
tops online banking population with 5.3 million, followed by China
2.6 million, Taiwan 1.7 million. Of the top 20 internet banks, South Korea
has 12, China 5. Levels of the customer satisfaction are found to be higher
among the customers of Internet banking. The percentage of internet users in
favor of switching over to internet banking is high thought the region from
76% in Taiwan to 93% in China and 65% in Korea. In countries such as
United States, online banking adoption will rise from 22% in 2002 to about
38% by 2010. In the 1990s banks laid great thrust on Internet banking
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drawing from the estimates of very lower cost of transactions in Internet
banking.
An interesting development in the growth of Internet banking is that it
could promote more of brick and mortar banking as well. A recent report of
the Nielsen/Net Ratings observed, “In virtually every market, it is the
traditional, established brick and mortal banks that are attracting the
biggest audiences. A large majority of online customers are most likely
also customers of the in-person bank branches”. A recent report in the
Business Week magazine said that in the height of Internet boom, big banks
declared bank branching dead and were aggressively investigating in
technology instead. They hoped to win over customers through their new
electronic systems and cut back on expensive bricks and mortar. So they
spent heavily on call centers and website and also opened less costly mini
branches in grocery and discount stores.
Despite a growing array of online options, customers continue to
open 80% of new checking and savings accounts at branches. After a decade
of slow growth in deposits, banks are now benefiting from the stock market
slump as customers slash money from their banks. Multi product offerings
are hoped that will enable branches sustainability. WaMu Bank opened
144 branches last year and is planning 230 this year. ATMs in the early
1980s and Internet in the late 1990s. This trend could flow to the Asian
banking systems too soon.
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Consolidation
Asian economic crisis brought in several changes in the banking
landscape. The prudential regulation was not only stepped up but also the
consolidation of banks to be followed in order to bring greater efficiencies
and financial stability. While bank mergers in the mature economies were
more market induced and to gain greater synergies between different
markets segments (such as Citibank/travelers) in the emerging economies,
policies too supported the consolidation of the banking industries to enhance
strength of the banking system and its sustainability. This trend was evident
in many of the emerging economies. Though not much progress took place
in foreign acquisitions of domestic banks in Asia, consolidation within the
domestic banking institutions is significant and sizeable.
The Pace of Bank Consolidation in Asia
Consolidation is taking place at a rapid pace in Asia and the most
targeted banks for acquisition are the family owned banks. The size and
strength of banking systems in Asia is vastly varied. In the top 330 Asian
Banks, as compiled by Asia Week 500 (excluding Japan, Australia and New
Zealand) China’s 25 banks account for 42% of the bank assets, where as
Taiwan’s 48 banks account for 15% of the bank assets. India with 55 banks
represented in the top league accounts for just less than 6% of the bank
assets. Bank consolidation in South Asia has been relatively at a slow pace
as compared to South East Asia.
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Issues and Imperatives
Major aspects are that banking in Asia is expanding and diversifying-
In ‘Operations’, banks continue to be major forces in financial
intermediation, though the recent period witnessed a sharp growth in
consumer credit, as corporate sector are moving more towards bonds and
equities for their financing. Online banking is rapidly growing across all
countries in the region and so as the credit card business. Growth of personal
credit is also considered responsible for reviving domestic economic growth
in some economies. But already concerns about growth of personal debt are
increasing in many countries. Financial Service Authority of UK discussed
about the length of various issues involved in the growth of personal debt in
Korea, which witnesses sharp surge in household credit recently announced
several measures to reduce the rate of its growth In June 2002, Korean
authorities increased the loan loss provisioning requirement for consumer
loans, lenders are advised to share the customer information on borrowers
with large credit limits and outstanding, reduced loan to value ratios for
housing loans, increased risk weight age for home loan mortgages etc.,
Growth of personal banking gives scope to new types of risk that banks
should be well handled to assess and monitor.
In ‘Efficiency’, banks are slowly returning to healthy rates of return
and containing bad debts though, Asian banks have yet to go a long way to
reach the desired and established standards that are evident in stronger
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banking systems. South East Asia had addressed to the issue of resolution of
non-performing assets in a much more focused manner and creating suitable
asset reconstruction mechanisms. Most of the banking systems are now
suitably capitalized which should not be a major constraint for the
continuation of banking growth. In view of the rapid decline of the interest
rates in the recent period, there could be some pressure on the margins, but
more of consumer credit would mitigate this problem to certain extent as
long as the risks are managed. These changes move banks more towards the
fee based earnings online with the trends evident in developed banking
systems, but the transformation from transaction based to process based
activity will give rise to new types of risks which banks should ready to
assess and cope up with.
In ‘Structure’, significant consolidation is taking place, though the
growth of foreign ownership is not sizeable. With continued pace of
international coordination on creating strong and sustained financial
architecture, initiatives for giving more access to foreign ownership and
consolidation within the domestic institutions could gain speed. Already
in much of the Asia family owned banks are increasingly targeted for
acquisition. More or less the pace of globalization and removal of controls
and barriers which could gain further momentum could also give rise to
large regional banks.
A World Bank report on Finance for Growth observes, “It is obvious
that advanced economies have sophisticated financial systems’’. What is not
obvious, but is borne out by the evidence, is that the services delivered by
these financial systems have contributed in an important way to the
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prosperity of these countries. They promote growth and reduce volatility,
helping the poor. Getting the financial systems of developing countries to
function more effectively in providing the full range of financial services-
including monitoring of managers and reducing risk is a task that will be
well rewarded with economic growth. At the same time, it is the banking
systems that have the evidence of becoming most vulnerable at the first
signs of opening up or financial liberalization. The World Bank report sums
up “If finance in fragile, banking is its most fragile part”. The most
important aspect of managing better banking is through responsibility of
major constituents of the banking systems, right type of regulation and
quality of response in a crisis. The last two decades of financial
liberalization, equipped banks with enormous experience and expertise in
dealing with a wide range of challenges and crisis. This hopefully would be
handy for them in charting new areas of growth in the background of next
generation reforms. Then banking could generate and sustain long-term
prosperity.
Steps taken by Asian banks to Restrict Banking Crisis
Screen out imprudent, incompetent, dishonest bank owners: Fit and
Proper Tests that bank owners and managers must pass to quality for
banking license. Prudential Supervision that covers leverage and asset
quality Capital adequacy, risk management, restrictions on connecting
lending etc.
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Termination of Authority in case of excessive insolvency, exposure
Regulation and disposition of bank before it exhausts its net worth and
causes losses to depositors. To protect depositors from loss and remove the
incentive for depositors to run from other banks thought to be jeopardy
‘Lender of the Last Resort’ to enable solvent institutions to meet the claims
of liability holders by Borrowing against assets rather than selling illiquid
assets at fire sale prices Protection of Monetary Authority from Cumulative
Collapse by neutralizing any shifts in the public demand for cash thus
protecting the Volume of bank reserves.
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Asian Banking
East Asian Banking Restructuring
&
Regulation Industrial Policy
 Introduction
 Facts/Changes in East Asian banking
 History of banking in Japan
 History of banking in Korea
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Asian Banking
 Asian Financial Crisis in 1997
 Comparison between Japan and Korea
Introduction
The impact of transition from a price-cap regulation (deposit/loan rate
control) to a rate-of-return regulation on banking industry structure. A
simple theoretical model of banking competition suggests that the relative
dominance of the two objective functions are influenced by industrial policy
via preferential rates and relaxing price-cap regulation reduces the
equilibrium number of banks. The result is supported by empirical evidence
from Japan and Korea, which have undergone a substantial consolidation.
The analysis is applied to a unique data set of the entire commercial banking
sector in Japan and Korea, which covers both pre and post banking crisis
periods. The evolution of the banking structure is based on the Structure-
Performance relationship.
Throughout the last decade, the East Asian banking industry has
adopted a more concentrated market structure. In particular, the Japanese
and Korean banks have made a radical move towards consolidation to deal
with their respective economic crisis. East Asian banks were simply
regarded as a means of supporting the real sector in the process of pursuing
economic development; the economic crisis triggered the restructuring
process in the banking sector. Hence, the recent financial crisis in Asia
renewed recognition of the significance of the banking industry and its
regulation for the overall economy of the region. Previous bank structure has
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Asian Banking
primarily focused on the impact of exogenous change in regulation and the
subsequent change in competition environment. However, the industrial
policy in East Asia dominated the banking sector regulation and competition
prior to the crisis. Banking regulation has been nothing new in Japan and
Korea in terms of entry barriers, branching restrictions, and deposit rate
ceilings. East Asian banking regulation was designed to facilitate the
development of strategic industries. The deposit rate regulation, Allowed the
banks to have access to cheap funding. With cheap funding and with the
help of government subsidies, the strategic industries could grow fast
generating supernormal profits and remained as high quality customers to
banks. This kind of growth pattern continued in East Asia until they faced
economic crisis recently. Not only Japan and Korea have led the economic
growth in East Asia, but also some other East Asian countries which have
replicated many of the development patterns set by Japan and Korea
Moreover, the two countries have similarities in their industrial
structure due to their strong trade networks. Since the modern banking
system in Korea was established during the Japanese occupation, it seems
natural that Korea followed the Japanese type of banking establishments
when they had much in common in the structure of the real sector. However,
there is some evidence of divergence in terms of recent restructuring of the
banking sector. World Bank data categorizes Japan, Korea, China, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand as East
Asia. However, Japan and Korea have dominated the regional economy and
its growth representing 78% to 90% of East Asian GNP over the period
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Asian Banking
1960-1997. Their Contribution to the regional growth has been more than
80%, which fell down to 50% to 60% in the 1990s.
It is important to note that the banking industry has some special
attributes due to its nature of service industry and hence an industry-specific
approach is inevitable.
First, the role of East Asian banks in industrialization is analyzed by
comparing the evolution of the banking system with the country’s
macroeconomic position. The uniqueness of this approach lies in the sense
of inter-industry comparison between financial and non-financial industries
using an industrial organizational framework. It is important to note that
financial and non-financial industries have different attributes and therefore,
it is interesting to investigate how they evolved together. Second, a
theoratical model of banking competition is based on the circular model. The
two objective functions of banks: a revenue maximizing bank under
regulation and a profit maximizing bank under deregulation. The relative
dominance of the two objective functions is influenced by industrial policy,
thus by regulation which has an impact on the market structure in terms of
equilibrium number of banks in the market.
Finally, it empirically investigates the consequences of the regulation
and deregulation on entry, branching and deposit rates. The different types
of regulation and deregulation are defined and separately analyzed from the
country specific perspectives. The relationship between concentration
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Asian Banking
(Structure) and the degree of competition (Conduct) in Japan and Korea is
examined. The effects of deregulation on the structure of the banking
industry and the profitability (Performance) of the banks are tested. The
evolution of banking industry in the two countries is compared and which
shows the evidence of divergence in the restructuring process of the banking
sector between Japan and Korea.
Facts/Changes in East Asian banking
In the post war period, East Asian governments actively promoted
heavy and chemical industries and certain academics like Cho (1994) and
Castle (1999) argued that the financial sector was lagging behind the fast-
developing real sector. Moreover, the pattern of fast growth in the real sector
and the lagging financial sector was common for all East Asian countries. In
particular, the similarities between Japan and Korea were significant due to
their strong trade networks. Thus, it is fair to say that the Korean
industrialization process followed that of Japanese with a time lag of almost
a decade. This overlapping transfer of industrial structures from Japan to
Korea was explained by the Japanese relocation process, which was started
in the late 1960s. This is explained with help of following table.
Japan and Korea: changes in industrial structures
Period Japan Korea
1950 Light industries (textiles) Primary products(food
products)
1960 Heavy industries(steel & ships) Light
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Asian Banking
industries(textiles)
1970 Knowledge industries & heavy
industries
Heavy industries(steels,
chemicals, electronics
& ships)
1980 Knowledge-intensive(high-
tech) industries
Heavy industries
1990 High-tech & service industries Knowledge-intensive
industries
Source: Castle (1999), Korea’s Economic Miracle
Ishii (1997) claimed the reason for the high growth rate in East Asia is
its high rate of savings. Even in the 1980s the rate of savings of the
household economy in Japan was around 17% which was twice as much as
those in the advanced Western countries. It is true that the high rate of
savings in East Asia is one of the common factors for its fast growth.
However, the role of banks in the process of allocating the funds into
appropriate industries and enterprises should not be overlooked. As Ishii
(1997) pointed out for Japan, the main part of the funds for industrialization
in East Asia was not procured directly from the capital market but supplied
indirectly through various kinds of banks, and the respective central banks
provided these banks with funds if necessary.
Cho (1994) explains that the East Asian governments were heavily
involved in the direction of savings fund to achieve development goals in the
real sector. Industrialization in East Asia has not only meant for a
transformation of an agrarian economy into an industrial economy, but it
also means a more focused industrial development in strategic industries
such as heavy industries. Thus, the financial sector has never developed
independently of the real sector in East Asia. More importantly, the
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Asian Banking
industrial policy dominated financial sector developments leaving the
banking sector subordinate to the real sector.
Brief history of banking in Japan
It is worth looking at the formation of modern banking system in
Japan as it set a prototype for the region. The Meiji restoration in 1868
provided a ground for the modern banking system in Japan. A structural
framework including, operating principles and regulatory issues started to
form and continued to develop from 1868 up to the mid 1990s. The
development phases of Japanese banking reflects three distinctive periods,
the period from the Restoration through World War II and the Allied
occupation, the high growth era of the 1950s to the 1970s, and the quarter
century since the oil shock of 1973.
WWII-1868
A modern banking system was built by adopting a variety of Western
models on top of a legacy of indigenous financial practices between 1868
and World War I. The main institutional feature of the banking evolution in
Japan was characterized under the Bank Act 1890, which took effect in
1893. National banks began to change to ordinary banks in substantial
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Asian Banking
numbers from the end of 1896, when the charters started to expire and by
1899 no national banks remained. This amalgamated three classes of
banking institutions – National, Private, and Quasi-bank into one.
Interestingly, the new bank law did not set any minimum bank size in favor
of free competition. As a result, unit banking was predominant in Japan until
World War I. With the development of Zaibatsu (former enterprise type of
Keiretsu), the Mitsubishi and Sumitomo Zaibatsu transformed their finance
department into banks in 1895. This made the monetary crisis more several
because these banks were suspected to failure during recessions.
The Big Five banks (Mitsui, First, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Yasuda)
dominated the sector until World War I. Special banks started to emerge
during this period as well, such as the Tokohama Special Bank (established
in 1880) to finance foreign trade. Within the five year period between 1897
& 1902, the government founded the Hypothec Bank of Japan (Nippon
Kangyo Ginko), 46 affiliated prefectural Agricultural and Industrial Banks,
the Hokkaido Colonial Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan (Nippon
Kogyo Ginko). Most of these banks were designed to finance the transition
from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy. During the 1920s and
1930s, Japanese banking underwent with considerable adjustment in terms
of the relationship between private institutions and state regulators. The
trigger to this legislative reform was the Banking Crisis in 1927 caused by
the post World War I recession. With the intensification of official
regulation, concentration in commercial banking has increased. However,
public and private interactions were dynamic and complex and the
bureaucracy could not simply dictate policy to the banks. Zaibatsu banks
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Asian Banking
continued to be the leading institutions in the system while a new Hugh
(1999) well documented the Japanese banking system in historical
perspectives in Banking in Japan (1999) edited by Tsutsui.
WWII-1973
There were some institutional changes in the banking sector after the
WWII as post-war reorganization of the financial system was carried out by
dissolving wartime institutions and establishing private long-term credit
institutions and financial institutions for small and medium sized firms and
agriculture. During high growth era between 1952 and 1973, Japanese
banking established the uniqueness of the system. The predominant pattern
of banking activities was over-loan and over- borrowing in indirect
financing in order to facilitate the investment led growth.
Post 1973
Japan tried to reform the banking industry once again to cope up with
the difficulties in the real sector and the driving force of the reform was from
market liberalization with various deregulation measures. The main focus of
liberalization was on lifting interest rate regulation starting with short-term
rates. Branching restriction and cross-financial sector entry restriction started
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Asian Banking
to relax later. In the 1980s, banks were allowed to diversify their financial
products and services. Enactment of the Financial System Reform Act of
1993 enabled banks and securities firms to enter each other’s fields.
One of the most significant liberalization measures in recent Japanese
banking history, was “Big-Bang programmed” initiated in 1996 by the
then Prime Minister Hashimoto. Various reforms were scheduled to be
implemented based upon the three guiding principles of ‘Freedom’,
‘Fairness’, and ‘Globalization’, so that the Tokyo financial market could
attain a status on par with New York and London by 2005. Restructuring has
accelerated following the Asian crisis in 1997. The bank-on-bank holding
companies created a new environment for financial institutions so that they
can form alliances. This can be explained with the help of following table.
Japanese Banking Liberalization: Post-1978
Liberalization measure Date effective
Short-term interest rates liberalized 1978
Issuance of CD started May 1979
FX control eased by amending the
Law
Dec 1980
Regulation on conversion of foreign Jun 1984
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currency into the yen abolished
Money market certificate created Apr 1985
Investment business law enacted Nov 1986
Financial System Reform Act
allowed banks to enter securities
business
Apr 1993
Interest rates of Time deposits
liberalized completely
Jun 1993
Interest rate on demand deposits
liberalized (ex. current account)
Oct 1994
Restrictions on the number of a
bank’s new branches removed
Jun 1995
Regulation on deposit products
relaxed
Oct. 1995
‘Big Bang’ reform announced – PM
Hashimoto’s idea of-
1/freedom
2/fairness
3/globalisation
Nov 1996
Ban on financial holding companies
lifted
Dec 1997
Amended FX and Foreign Trade
Law making FX transactions free
from
governmental authorization
Apr 1998
Bank allowed to sell investment trust
over-the-counter
Dec 1998
Restriction on trust bank Oct 1999
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Asian Banking
subsidiaries/securities company
subsidiaries
Abolished Bank allowed to issue
straight bonds
Oct 1999
Banks, securities companies to be
allowed to enter insurance business
End 2000
A new Financial Services Law to be
enacted
Source: Japanese Banks 2000 (Zenginkyo, 2000)
Brief history of banking in Korea
The Korean banking system seems to replicate the Japanese system as
the introduction of a modern banking system into Korea dates back to the
beginning of Japanese domination over the country.
WWII-1878
In 1878, the First National Bank (a Japanese bank) opened in Pusan
and this was followed by Korean banks openings. However, most Korean
banks only existed for See Japanese Banks 2000 (2000), Japanese Bankers
Association (JBA). In May 2001, Sony Corp. filed a formal application for a
bank in cooperation with Sakura Bank and JP Morgan that utilizes the
internet. In 1909, the Old Bank of Korea was founded and was renamed the
‘Bank of Chosun’ in 1910.
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Asian Banking
During the early 1900s, numerous banks were established including
Chosun Industrial Bank, Chosun Commercial Bank (later renamed the
Commercial Bank of Korea), Cho Hung Bank, Korea First Bank (1929) and
Hanil Bank (1932). In 1959, Bank of Seoul was established and became
nation wide in 1962. Since the government had owned commercial banks
until government owned stocks were sold in the late 1950’s, these banks
exercised very little autonomy.
WWII – 1982
The establishment of the new banking system followed the liberation
from Japan in 1945 and the inauguration of the Republic of Korea in 1948.
At that time, The Korean banking system was reorganized for the purpose of
financing the five years Economic Development Plan more efficiently. The
Bank of Korea Act was amended in 1962 and various specialized banks
were introduced to facilitate financial support for underdeveloped or
strategically important industries such as Small and Medium Industry Bank,
Citizens National Bank, Korea Exchange Bank and The Korea Housing
Bank.
Post 1982
The General Banking Act was revised in 1982 and commercial banks
started to be privatized. These included Hanil Bank, Korea First Bank, Bank
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Asian Banking
of Seoul and Trust, Chohung Bank. One of the main reasons was the shift
from direct credit controls through credit ceilings on individual banks to
indirect controls through management of bank reserves. In 1984, the
preferential rates on policy loans by commercial banks were abolished and
band system in loan rates was introduced, in which banks are allowed to
charge different rates. The ceilings on various rates (inter-bank call rates and
issuing rates of unsecured corporate bonds) were also lifted. As a measure to
provide a more competitive environment in banking, Shinhan Bank and
Koram Bank opened in 1982 and 1983 respectively. It is important to note
that Shinhan Bank was the first banking establishment financed by private
capital only.
In the 1980s, to encourage the domestic banks to improve their
banking practices and managerial skills, numerous foreign bank branches
were allowed to open. In 1988, interest rates were extensively deregulated to
increase banking competition in the process of financial liberalization. Entry
barriers were further lowered in 1989, adding 3 new commercial banks -
Dongwha Bank, Dongnam Bank and Daedong Bank. Also, Korea Exchange
Bank changed its status from a specialized bank to a nation-wide
commercial bank. Between 1991 and 1997, a four-stage plan for interest
rates deregulation was completed. The main focus of liberalization was on
lifting interest rate regulation starting with short-term rates while branching
restriction and cross-financial sector entry restriction has not been fully
relaxed. Further deregulation is in the process of being implemented in the
aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. This can be explained with
the help of following table.
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Korean Banking Liberalization: post-1990
Liberalization measure Date effective
Short-term interest rates and interest
rates on time deposits with maturity
over 3 years liberalized
Nov 1991
Liberalized interest rates on time
deposits with maturity over 2 years
Nov 1993
Rates on strategic loans (BOK
induced) were partially liberalized as
the band of preferred rates for this
category was guided by the
government
Dec 1994
deposits with maturity over 1 years
Dec 1994
deposits with maturity over 6 months
Jul 1995
deposits with maturity below 6
months (completed 4 stage
Nov 1995
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deregulation on interest rates:1991-
1997, earlier
than planned)
Branching restriction still remains 2000
Source: Korean Financial System (Bank Of Korea, 1998)
As one of the most significant changes of banking regulation in
Korea, the restriction on foreign ownership of domestic commercial banks
has been lifted and now there is virtually no restriction on foreign
ownership. The current changes within the Korean banking structure are
being propelled by the recent financial crisis, as government officials
realized that Korean banks were not competitive enough to survive. To
improve the banking standards, ‘Financial Supervisory Service’ (FSS)
enforced the new accounting standards in accordance with internationally
accepted standards. Changes in the management structure, in particular with
the presence of foreign management, will definitely affect the structure of
the Korean banking industry.
However, Asian banks showed evidence of maximizing lending
during the regulated period as their interest margins were protected by the
deposit rate ceilings and the guaranteed minimum lending rate for strategic
industries. Asian banks started to focus more on profit maximization as their
objectives following market deregulation. Thus, recent transformation in the
Asian bank objectives is in part due to the increasing non-performing loans
following the economic crisis. The banks realized that revenue maximizing
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Asian Banking
does not protect them from losses due to non-performing loans considering
lending as equivalent to revenues of non-financial firms.
Asian Financial Crisis in 1997
In order to test the predictions of ‘SCP’ paradigm with modification
for feedback, a set of variables for Structure (concentration), Conduct
(branching and pricing) and Performance (profitability) were chosen and the
relevant indices computed with respect to the strategic variable and deposits.
The number of branches per bank measured the size of the branch network.
Finally, three variables were used to capture the effect of various types of
deregulation.
The sample consists of 16 city banks and 64 regional banks in Japan
(80 banks) and 17 city banks and 10 regional banks in Korea (27 banks) over
the period of 1976 to 1999. For both countries, the data for all banks were
aggregated. The econometric model is tested on commercial banks (i.e.
nation-wide city banks and regional banks), as foreign bank branches and
specialized banks do not participate in the majority of competitive activities
given the prevailing regulation. Moreover, city and regional banks represent
nearly 50% of the deposit market and they are the ones that compete in the
more realistic sense. This can be explained with the help of following table.
Evolution of the number of commercial banks
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Asian Banking
Dec-
1976
M&A R T A Peak Dec-
2002
Japanese
Banks
Dec
1985
Nation-
Wide
13 -3 -1 0 0 13 8
Regional 63 0 0 0 1 64 64
Korean
Banks
Dec
1987
Nation-
Wide
5 -6 0 3 9 16 8
Regional 10 -4 0 0 0 10 6
Source: Japanese Banks- Principles Financial Institutions By Zenginkyo, & Korean Bank
Management.
Where, M-Mergers & Acquisitions, R-Revocation, T-Transformation, A-Authorization of
new entities
4.3 Comparison between Japan and Korea
Many economists showed similarities between Japan and Korea during the
industrialization period after World War II, very few people tried to explain
differences between the two countries. Despite the close interdependency
with respect to trade and industrial structure, the banking sector has shown
some evidence that they were taking fundamentally different steps towards
restructuring. Japan seemed to have taken a prolonged plan for restructuring,
as banks cannot truly compete in interest rates as they are bounded around
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Asian Banking
zero. By contrast, Korea seemed to move much faster towards restructuring,
growth and efficiency.
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Asian Banking
Chinese Banks: On the Reforms Path
 Introduction
 Banking Reforms
 Interest Rate Policy
 Behest Lending
 Non-performing loans
 Monetary policies of the Central Bank
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Asian Banking
Chinese Banks: On the Reforms Path
Introduction
With the china’s entry into the WTO-fold, Chinese banks have to gear
up, to face competition from foreign banks, which will be entering china
shortly.
China is a very fast growing major economy in the world, with a
strong domestic demand and substantial foreign direct investment. It has
joined WTO during December, 2001. But its banking system is in a crisis
with a very high level of NPA’s and behest lending to state-managed
enterprises, which have been faring very poorly. With the entry into WTO-
fold, foreign banks will get the green signal to carry out business in foreign
currency with their domestic clients. Within two years, they will also be
allowed to conduct wholesale banking business in local currency & within
five years, they will be permitted to do retail business with the Chinese
population. So, obviously there is an urgent need for the unsophisticated &
ailing Chinese banks to perform better and been in the competition with the
foreign banks.
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Asian Banking
Banking Reforms
Chinese banking reforms were initiated during 1978, a clear 14 years
ahead of Indian economic reforms of 1992. The PBOC which functioned
both as a central bank has been split to form four specialized banks and one
central bank, which retained the name of PBOC. The four specialized banks
are the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), the China Construction Bank
(CCB), The Bank of China (BOC) & The Industrial & Commercial Bank of
China (ICBC). These four banks were also known as Policy Banks, as they
were charged with the responsibility of implementation of the government
plans and policies relating to agriculture, construction, foreign exchange,
urban commercial and industrial development. However, by 1994 they shed
the ‘Policy Banks’ tag to become commercial banks. However, the policy
execution functions have been entrusted to three state-run banks namely,
China Development Bank (CDB), Export Import Bank of China (XIB) and
Agricultural Bank of China (ABC). But as these new banks lacked network
of branches, the separation of policy banks from the commercial banks was
not very well-defined and effective.
Presently there are four wholly state-owned commercial banks (the
Big Four Banks), 10 joint equity commercial banks and 90 city commercial
banks. The four largest banks in china account for about 70% of assets,
deposits and loans of the entire banking system, thereby depicting the
dominance of the big four banks.
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Asian Banking
Interest Rate Policy
PBOC follows a regulated interest rate policy, which means the big
four government banks virtually face no competition either in loan pricing or
deposit interest rates, thereby according a monopoly status. The Central
Bank Authority (PBOC), however, claims that interest rates, though not
deregulated, are tending to be market-determined.
Behest Lending
The big four banks undertake substantial behest lending to state-
owned enterprises. It is no surprise that these banks are gradually loosing
their position of prominence in profitability, thanks to the poor performance
of SOE’s and mounting NPA’s of the banks.
Explicit guarantees by the central government for the deposits placed
with the big four provided them with abundance of deposits, a source used to
finance the SOE’s. While SOEs are the chief contributors to the employment
sector, pension funds and housing, their dismal performance has been a big
drag on the performance of the big four banks. There are about 1.7lakh
state-owned enterprises, which are the social legacy of China. These SOE’s
never had profit focus and were notorious for inefficiency. The fourth
generation of leaders, to whom political power has been transferred during
October, 2002, has now realized that it is better to commercialize SOE’s
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Asian Banking
rather then wholesale privatization. In fact, reforms are in place for the better
management of these establishments in the form of ownership
transformation and commercialization, so that both public and private
ownership could co-exist. Radical efforts to reduce staff and curtail wastage
are also showing better results. One paradoxical situation that the Chinese
authorities have faced is that many of these SOE’s may have to be declared
bankrupt if stringent bankruptcy laws which are on the avail are to be
implemented. In such a case, the financing banks will obviously take a
bigger hit on the NPA’s front. This can be explained with the help of
following table (Table-8)
China: Surges Ahead
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Growth Rates(%,y-y)
GDP 7.8 7.1 8.0 7.3 8.0
Merchandise exports 0.5 6.1 27.8 6.8 22.3
Merchandise imports -1.5 18.2 35.8 8.2 21.2
Ratios(% of GDP)
Current account balance 3.4 2.1 1.9 1.5 1.7
Government debt 17.8 20.9 22.8 24.5 25.3
Levels(US$)
Foreign exchange reserves
(billions)
145.0 154.7 165.6 212.2 286.4
Net FDI inflow (billions) 41.1 37.0 37.5 37.4 41.8
Income per capita 740.0 780.0 840.0 890.0 940.0
China has concentrated both on macroeconomic stability and improving the
performance of the banks, especially the state-owned banks.
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Asian Banking
Non-Performing Loans
There was a need to recapitalize the banks with the help of NPA
(Non-Performing Asset) levels. In 1998, an amount of US $ 33billion has
been recapitalized, through a special bond issue, so as to make the
transaction ‘fund flow neutral’. In 1999, four AMC’s have been started to
acquire the NPA’s of the big four. Chinese banks have adopted the five
classification loan structure (pass loans, special mention loans, substandard,
doubtful & loss loans). The AMC’s were to exchange their bonds, in a
phased manner, over a period of 10 years, with the NPL’s of the big four.
These bonds carry the guarantee of the central government. So far, the
AMCs have taken about US $170 billion NPL accounts from the big four
banks.
However, the NPL’s problem has acquired crisis proportions, with
over 25% level for the big four (2001), showing only a 3% fall from the
previous years level. It is worth recording here that analysis placed the
NPL’s figure for the big four as high as 35-50%. At the targeted level of 3%
reduction every year, (either through recoveries, write-offs or sale to
AMC’s), it will take 12 to 16 years to bring down their level to an acceptable
percentage. This is explained with the help of following table (Table-9).
Recovery Rate in NPL Sales(%)as of End of Year 2001
AMCs Oriental Great Wall Huarong Cinda
2001 24.2 7 32.5 35
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Asian Banking
Monetary policies of the Central Bank
The PBOC has been designated as the central banking authority, in the
year 1995. It charged with the main function of formulating and
implementing monetary policy and supervision of the financial services
sector. In its report for the fiscal 2002, it claims that it has encouraged
commercial banks to strengthen loan marketing, improve financial services,
and intensify financial support to economic growth, besides creating a
favorable condition for the sustained, rapid and healthy development of the
economy. It also stated that monetary and credit supply was basically
commensurate with the trend of economic growth. The central banking
authority appears to be taking conscious steps to reduce the significance of
cash as an intermediate monetary target by facilitating the growth of
settlement instruments such as commercial bills and credit cards.
There is significant increase in Renminbi loans and foreign currency
loans by 17% in total for the year 2002. Wholly-owned state banks, and joint
stock commercial banks besides policy banks, as usual, contributed to this
rise. The growth in deposits was also significant. PBOC has declared that for
the year 2003, monetary policy instruments of various kinds will be flexibly
used to keep appropriate increase of money supply. The interest rate and
exchange rate policy will be kept stable, in the process of market based
interest rate reform. Credit policy will be applied to support economic
restructuring.
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Asian Banking
China’s monetary policy was fairly successful in keeping interest rates
and inflation very low. What is more, it did not allow the economy to fall
into a deflationary spiral, through a sound monetary policy, coupled with the
proactive fiscal policy of the government.. Other features of the monetary
policy are preserving the exchange rate stability & improving the monetary
policy transmission mechanism. PBOC has counseled the SME’s, starved of
bank credit, to attempt for enterprise restructuring, so as to improve
creditworthiness. Banks have also been advised to aggressively market
credit to eligible SME’s sector borrower.
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Asian Banking
Bank of China
 Introduction
 A Watershed Year, 2001
 Treasury Operations
 Investment Banking
 Risk Management
 Corporate Governance
 The Business Strategy & Performance
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Asian Banking
Introduction
Bank of China is a major government bank with strong foreign
exchange operations. It proposes to strengthen its operations in insurance,
investment banking and foreign exchange business to become an
international bank. It has been strengthening risk management and corporate
governance functions, besides computerization level. BOC was established
90 years ago, and is one of the major government banks in china, popularly
known for its foreign exchange operations. It is ranked 8th
among 300 Asian
banks, with respect to net profit.
A Watershed Year, 2001
For BOC, 2001 signifies radical changes. The entire bank was focused
on the development of its core activities, as a matter of priority. During this
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Asian Banking
year, the bank has continued to build a robust decision-making system. It has
also fine-tuned risk management through a due diligence process and a
system of follow up evaluation. Asset disposition review committee and
procurement review committee have also been established.
The bank has also followed prudent accounting principles with a view
to improve transparency. It has also adopted the five-tier approach in loan
classification with a view to provide transparency. It has also adopted the
five-tier approach in loan classification with a view to provide transparency
and clarity about asset quality. It is during 2001, that the bank, in
compliance with the prudent accounting principles has undertaken massive
write-off of bad-debts, besides providing substantially, for substandard and
doubtful debts. It has even reversed uncollected overdue interest. Three
years of restructuring efforts have resulted into better standards of risk
management & transparency.
In the credit area for 2002, it has added US $ 103 billion by May 2002
to the retail lending sector, to take the total exposure over US $ 250 billion.
The areas-of retail lending includes consumer loans, auto loans, travel and
personal loans.
BOC has significant overseas presence with 585 branches in 26
countries. Thirty seven percent of Chinas international trade is routed
through this bank. BOC has put in place, performance-based reward and
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disciplinary processes. The evaluation results are linked to bonuses,
promotions, training, job assignment etc.
Treasury Operations
The bank provides market information and option for risk
management through the hedging services for assets and liabilities, the bank
garners impassive revenues.
Sector Structure of the Loans
Sector December 31,2001 December 31,2000
Manufacturing 3,36,965 3,13,541
Commerce 1,29,062 1,18,856
Real Estate 1,67,140 1,98,810
Others 9,53,770 8,73,838
Total 15,86,937 15,05,045
Source: Bank of China, 2001 Annual Report.
The bank is very strong in foreign exchange services, with a volume
of US $ 160 billion (2001). It is a lending player in foreign currency clearing
business in domestic market. During 2002, the foreign exchange business
was amounted to US $196 billion.
For corporate clients with global operations, an innovative product is
called as ‘Global Credit Line’ which has been introduced during 2001, to
facilitate overseas development of Chinese enterprises. It also introduced
factoring & forfeiting services and cash management solutions. Credit to the
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sales outlets of the multinationals is provided through two new products
namely, ‘Distribution Passport’ and ‘Startup winners’. By the end of 2002,
corporate deposits had been increased US $963 billion, a growth of 11%
over the previous year.
In the credit cards area, the bank issues two types of cards namely, the
Great Wall International Card and the Great Wall Electronic Debit Card, this
is the domestic card. In 2001, the issue of domestic cards reached a level of
4.6 million, recording a growth of 13%. The international cards totaled to
110,000, with a growth rate of 112%. At the end of 2002, the number of
Great Wall Cards in issue was 5.25 million. The number of international
cards has swelled to 23,000.
Investment Banking
The bank participated in the IPO’s of eight enterprises in 2001. Total
capital raised by these enterprises accounted for over 70% of the amount of
capital raised in the Hong Kong Stock Market in 2001. The bank acted as
the joint global coordinator, joint book runner, joint sponsor and joint lead
underwriter for the biggest IPO project in Hong Kong in 2001, China
National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). In 2002, it remained the
number one arranger of IPO’s.
Risk Management
The banks risk management system reflects the principles of segregation of duties
between risk management and business operational roles. Cross-departmental Risk
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Management Committee, Asset and Liability Management and Budget Committee
functions under the direct control of the top management, while individual departments
take care of the credit, market and liquidity risk. The bank is trying to implement Basel
capital accord norms while managing the various risks.
Corporate Governance
The bank plans to attain international standards in corporate
governance within three to five years. As a first step, the bank has focused
on the following six key areas: Clear strategy for business expansion, sound
decision-making mechanism and strengthened financial risk control, prudent
accounting principles and increased transparency, strategically linked
performance evaluation, human resource development and establishment of
a truly accountable board.
During 2001, the bank has been adjudged the best bank of china by
Euro money, the Best Domestic Bank in china by Asset, and the Best Retail
Bank in China by the Asian Banker. The bank hopes to acquire the status of
a leading universal international bank very soon, by foraying into insurance
and securities through strategic alliances. It proposes to concentrate on
commercial banking, investment banking and insurance.
The Business Strategy
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The bank has paid special attention to improving the penetration of
information technology besides focusing on corporate and retail banking.
The bank has further strengthened its risk management and internal control
infrastructure.
Performance Highlights for 2002
• The bank has principal exposures in manufacturing commerce, real
estate and other sectors.
• At the end of 2002, domestic retail loans reached US $155.5 billion,
an increase of US $73.1 billion, the highest growth rate in the Chinese
banking industry.
• Number one in cards business in china.
• Top 50 arranger of European syndicated lending.
• The asset quality of Bank of China improved considerably in 2002. At
the year-end, the non-performing assets ratio of Bank of China group was
22.5%, down 5% points from the previous year. In the banks domestic
operations, non-performing assets of US $59.6 billion have been
resolved, resulting in cash recoveries of US $34.7 billion.
• Number one arranger of IPO’s in Hong Kong.
• 30% growth in insurance income.
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Case-Study
ICICI Bank
ICICI Bank has been a consistent performer. It has occupied the first
place among the private sector banks & second place among over all the
banks on the basis of its assets. This tech-savvy bank always follows well-
defined business strategies. Its present emphasis is on retail banking. While
it has many strengths and opportunities, it is likely to face challenges in the
form of higher incidence of NPA’s, unfavorable funding composition and
the needs to comply with the 40% priority sector norms in the coming years.
ICICI Bank has become the largest private sector bank and the second
largest bank in India. As a universal bank, ICICI Bank has transformed itself
from the role of mere financial intermediary into a provider of a wide range
of services, in addition to an originator of credit. The product range is
impressive: Home Loans, Car Loans, Consumer Loans, Credit Cards, Debit
Cards, Smart Cards, E-Cheques, Private Banking, Demat Services, NRI
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Services, all these in retail banking, driven by branches, ATMs, internet and
call centers. Being a tech-savvy bank, it has taken full advantage of a
liberalized economy and availability of superior technology. Its retail
distribution and services are truly technology-driven.
Well-defined Strategies
ICICI Bank has adopted a well-defined, carefully planned strategy for
development. The key elements of its strategy have been capitalization of
new business opportunities; build up of a strong brand and distribution
capability, leveraging technology, establishment of robust systems and
human capital.
Strategic Initiatives-Retail Banking
The banks retail assets continued 49% of advances and 42% of
customer assets as on December 31, 2003. The bank continued to focus on
securitization of its customer assets. During April to December 2003 the
total sell-down/securitization of assets was Rs.7, 900 cr. The bank has base
of over 6, 50,000 credit cards at the end of fiscal 2002. Most of the Indian
banks do not appear to be successful in profitability conducting credit card’s
business. It is not known whether ICICI Bank is earning profits from this
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Asian Banking
retail business. The bank has issued 6, 00,000 debit cards as well. The bank
has been aggressively marketing retail deposits as well, with a view to
reduce the cost of funds besides creating a stable funding base. Its retail
clientele, as a consequence has increased from 3.2 million to over 5 million
during 2001-2002. The average cost of funds has come down to 5.30%
during fiscal 2003.
Other retail initiatives include electronic trading on the stock
exchanges, called “ICICI Direct”. The bank produces digitally signed
contract notes, allowing customer to view and print contract notes online. Its
multi-channel distribution strategy is fairly successful. The branches now
account for about one-third of the transactions, the rest being done through
one thousand ATM’s, and internet banking accounts. It has over 10,00,000
retail internet banking accounts. It offers internet-based inter bank funds
transfer facility in eight cities through e-cheques. Its call centers can be
accessed by customers in 100 cities, providing a single point of contract for
customers across all products, besides self-service options and personalized
communication with customer service officers.
Corporate Banking Strategy
The bank adopts the strategy of customized financial solutions to
clients. It follows risk-based pricing and proactive portfolio management. It
has been actively partaking in the ongoing public sector disinvestment
process through structuring and advisory services. The bank has created a
market for securitized debt. It is a dominant player in project finance, loan
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Asian Banking
syndication and international business in the form of ethnic banking services
to NRIs. It also leverages its home country links for capturing market shares
in select international markets.
As Island of High Wage Earners
The bank pays high salaries to its executive cadre staff and very high
level salaries for other officers. A general manager’s salary is easily in the
range of Rs.25, 00,000 to Rs.50, 00,000 gross per annum, depending on the
performance. CEO, managing director, joint managing directors, and
executive directors clear more than a cr. of rupees annually. It has
introduced Employee Stock Option Scheme (ESOS), two years ago to
enable its employees participate in the future growth and profits of the bank.
Public Recognition
During fiscal 2003, the bank received several prestigious awards in
recognition of its business strategies, customer service levels, technology
focus and human resource practices, linking:
• “Bank of the Year 2002, in India” by The Banker magazine of UK;
• “Bank of the Year from the emerging markets” by The Banker
magazine of UK;
• “Best Bank in India” by Global Finance;
• “Best Consumer Internet Bank in India” by Global Finance;
• “Best Foreign Exchange Bank in India” by Global Finance;
• “India’s Most Admired Bank 2002” in the BB-TN Sofres Mode Poll;
• “Best Managed Bank in Asia”, in a poll by Euro money;
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Asian Banking
• “India’s Top 5 most respected companies” Business World magazine;
• “Excellence in Retail Banking” award by Asian Banker journal;
Source: ICICI Bank Annual Report, 2003.
Priority Sector Credit
The level of priority sector credit is less than 7% (2001-02),
consequent to the reverse. This percentage has gone up to 17% by March 31,
2003. The bank would have to deploy an additional 10%, over and above the
requirement of 40%, on the residual portion of its advances to reach the level
of 40% of the net bank credit. This acts as a constraint for the present
lending strategy of the bank, which is oriented towards high net worth
individuals and corporate sector. Augmenting priority credit involves putting
money in sectors like agriculture, SSI, professional and self-employed, retail
trade small business and road transport. The entire retail credit segment of
the bank cannot be classified as priority credit as it includes consumer
finance, shares, advances etc. Housing loans up to Rs.10,00,000 only qualify
for priority sector tag. In such a situation the bank has to alter its business
model towards weaker section segment. Thus, the expansion of SSI
advances, which attracts the medium and large industry segment borrowers
of the bank.
Other Key Highlights
Continued shift in liability profile
• Repayment of Rs.11, 000 cr. Of ICICI borrowings.
• Deposits constitute 60% of funding.
Wholesale banking product and channel innovation
• ICICI e-business, multilingual SME portal.
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Asian Banking
• Roaming current account.
• Increase in government relationships; wider product coverage for corporate
with increase in volumes.
Focus on recoveries
Progress of international initiatives
• Increase in NRI deposits and remittances.
Source: ICICI Bank’s Annual Report 2004
Thus, the ICICI Banks toughness has its strengths, faces formidable
challenges. It has to run faster to stay where it is.
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Asian Banking
Conclusion
The Asian banking has grown through their performance,
restructuring policy and their efficiency in providing the large amount of
services which helps the banks in their growth, structure and efficiency.
In Asian Banking, the concentration rises when deposit market size
increases as a consequence of deregulation process in banking industry. The
convincing pattern, innovation of new technology and the use of highly
advanced and sophisticated technology which is being used by almost all the
Asian Banks in order to perform their banking functions more efficiently,
effectively and in a proper manner . Thus due to convincing pattern and
latest use of technology which leads to the growth, structure and efficiency
in Asian Banking in a very smooth and convincing manner and which also
helps in increasing the banks profitability and their customers. The evolution
of banking concentration has been non-monotonic in Asia.
It is also important to note that the Asian banks are using
unambiguous entry deterrent tactics when they face new entrants following
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Asian Banking
the deregulation on cross-sector entry within the banking industry. However
the Asian banks are growing tremendously which is concluded after the
testing of econometric model which suggests that more or less Asian banks
like Japan and Korea are going through the same path in terms of banking
restructuring and efficiency.
It has been investigated that what has already happened with respect
to the structure of banking in Asia is worth having a closer look at the
on-going process of growth, structure and efficiency to predict the future
banking structure in Asia.
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List of Acronyms
GDP-Gross Domestic Product
ROA- Return on Assets.
NNP-Net National Product.
GNP-Gross National Product.
JBA-Japanese Bankers Association.
SCP-Structure, Conduct and Performance.
FSS-Financial Supervisory Services.
IRD-Interest Rate on Deposits.
IRL-Interest Rate on Loans.
PBOC-Peoples Bank of China.
ABC-Agricultural Bank of China.
CCB- China Construction Bank.
BOC- Bank of China.
ICBC-Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
CDB-China Development Bank.
XIB-Export Import Bank of China.
AMC’s-Asset Management Companies.
ADBIT-Asian Development Bank Institution of Tokyo.
WTO-World Trade Organization.
SOE’s-State-Owned Enterprises.
SME’s-Small and Medium Enterprises.
NPA’s-Non-Performing Assets.
NPL’s-Non-Performing Liabilities.
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Bibliography
www.Asianbanking.org
www.PBOC.org
www.adb.org
www.ICFAIpress.org
www.malaysianbank.com
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