China has moved to rein in an explosion of short-term high-yielding products offered by banks, which regulators see as a potentially dangerous side-effect of a lending spree by banks since the global financial crisis.

　　中国已采取行动遏制银行短期、高收益产品的爆炸式增长。全球金融危机以来，中国各银行掀起了一场放贷狂潮。在监管部门看来，上述产品的爆炸式增长是这场狂潮带来的、有可能导致危险的副产品。

　　In rules published on Wednesday, the China Banking Regulatory Commission demanded that banks do more to manage and disclose risks involved in their so-called “wealth management products”, which function like certificates of deposit with a duration of just a few weeks.

　　中国银监会(CBRC)在周三公布的《商业银行理财产品销售管理办法》（征求意见稿）中规定，商业银行应采取进一步措施管理和披露与所谓“理财产品”相关的风险。这些理财产品的功能，相当于期限只有几周的定期存单。

　　Having issued a torrent of credit over the past three years, Chinese banks are now working to attract enough funding to keep their loan-to-deposit ratio below the 75 per cent regulatory threshold.

　　过去3年里，中国各银行发放了海量的贷款。如今，它们正想方设法吸收足够的存款，以使自己的贷存比低于75%这一监管门槛。

　　While that is not in doubt for the country’s largest banks, smaller institutions are engaged in increasingly fierce competition to increase or simply maintain their deposit base, and the new rules signal official alarm at the aggressive steps they are taking. “Banks must not sell wealth management products which are not based on market analysis, have no risk-control mechanisms, have no risk measurement, and cannot be independently appraised,” said the CBRC.

　　对中国的大银行来说，这个目标毫无疑问可以实现。但对中小型银行来说，它们得要参与到日益激烈的竞争中，才能扩大、甚至只是维持自己的存款基础，而新管理办法对它们正在采取的激进举措发出了正式警告。银监会表示，“商业银行不得销售无市场分析预测、无风险管控预案、无风险评级、不能独立测算的理财产品。”

　　Concerns about China’s financial system have tended to focus on the asset side of banks’ balance sheets, particularly the huge amounts they have lent to local governments and the potential for a wave of defaults.

　　人们对中国金融系统的担忧，多集中在银行资产负债表的资产方面——尤其是银行向地方政府发放的海量贷款，以及出现违约潮的可能性。

　　The national audit office revealed this week that local government debts amounted to more than a quarter of China’s gross domestic product.

　　中国国家审计署本周表示，地方政府的总债务已超过中国国内生产总值(GDP)的四分之一。

　　However, the restrictions on the wealth management products show that the liability side of banks’ balance sheets is also becoming problematic as they scramble to shore up their funding base.

　　但是，上述对理财产品的限制措施表明，随着银行争先恐后地充实自己的存款基础，它们资产负债表的负债方面也在出现问题。

　　China caps the deposit rates that banks can offer well below lending rates, giving them a handsome net interest margin as a guaranteed source of profit. But depositors do not like putting their money in low-yielding accounts, so banks have been creating wealth management products to keep them satisfied.

　　根据监管部门的规定，商业银行的存款利率要比贷款利率低很多，这让它们获得了相当可观的净利差，掌控了一种有保障的利润来源。但是，储户不愿把钱存入低收益的存款账户，所以银行一直在推出各种理财产品以满足他们的需求。

　　These products are typically short term, running between two and 31 days. And in annualised terms, they offer interest rates as high as 8 per cent, more than double the benchmark one-year 3.25 per cent deposit rate.

　　这些理财产品通常期限较短，在2天至31天之间。按年率计算，这些产品提供的利率最高为8%，相当于基准的1年期存款利率（3.25%）的两倍多。

　　Charlene Chu, an analyst with Fitch Ratings in Beijing, said the single biggest risk was a liquidity crunch “because of the very short-term nature of the products and the resulting duration mismatch between assets and liabilities”.

　　惠誉评级(Fitch Ratings)驻北京分析师朱夏莲(Charlene Chu)表示，最大的风险是流动性吃紧，“这是由这些产品的短期性特点以及由此造成的资产与负债期限不匹配所致”。

　　Banks must roll over the wealth management products every few weeks to keep the cash flowing. If clients decided to stop buying the products, it would be tantamount to a withdrawal and banks would need to come up with their money, but bank assets are mainly tied up in longer-term loans and are not easily liquidated.

　　银行必须每隔几周将理财产品滚转一次，以保持资金的流动。如果客户决定不再购买这些产品，那就相当于提款，银行必须为客户准备好相关款项。但银行的资产却主要系于长期贷款，不容易变现。

　　There are about Rmb7,000bn ($1,082bn) in outstanding wealth management products, according to the official Xinhua news agency, more than triple the amount at the end of last year and equating to 9 per cent of total Chinese bank deposits.

　　据官方新华社称，中国理财产品总额高达7万亿元人民币（合1.082万亿美元），为去年底的三倍多，相当于中国银行业存款总额的9%。