China’s four biggest banks are among lenders who have been set differentiated reserve requirement ratios, said Liu Mingkang (劉明康), chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).
Liu didn’t specify whether all four banks or only some were targeted, nor by what margin they were ordered to raise ratios. The regulator spoke to reporters while attending the closing session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing yesterday.
Liu didn’t say when the differentiated reserve requirement ratios were imposed or whether they are still in place.
Central bank officials, including Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川), have said that they will use differentiated ratios in addition to the universal reserve requirement to curb lending. Under the system, individual lenders are told to hold differing amounts as reserves according to capital adequacy levels and lending growth.
The nation’s biggest four banks are Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC, 中國工商銀行), China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行), Bank of China Ltd (中國工商銀行) and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (中國農民銀行).
TARGETED BANKS
The People’s Bank of China has imposed differentiated reserve requirement ratios on 40 banks since January, Xinhua news agency -reported last month, citing an unnamed spokesman at the central bank. China has increased the overall reserve requirement for banks twice this year and raised interest rates once in a bid to curb inflation.
RAMPANT GROWTH
The 40 lenders targeted were local lenders, which had lower capital adequacy ratios and “rampant” growth in lending, Xinhua said, citing the spokesman. China’s central bank hasn’t publicly disclosed which banks were targeted and by how much their reserve requirements were raised.
Bank of China hasn’t been selected for the differentiated requirement, bank president Li Lihui (李禮輝) said in Beijing on March 5.
Liu also said yesterday that outstanding loans to the financing vehicles of local governments are now “under control” and that the banking regulator will closely monitor the situation.
The central bank has raised banks’ reserve requirement ratio eight times since the beginning of last year, excluding any extra requirements for individual lenders not publicly announced. The ratio now stands at 19.5 percent for the biggest banks.
Chinese banks extended 535.6 billion yuan (US$81.5 billion) of -local-currency loans last month, the central bank said yesterday. That was less than the 600 billion yuan median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 19 economists.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS