Last year, the banking industry reduced fees and allowed 356.8 billion yuan in profits-
Decrease in corporate financing costs and increase convenience
Our reporter Chen Guojing
“The financial system’s support for the real economy is relatively stable, corporate financing convenience has improved, and comprehensive financing costs have stabilized and decreased.” At the recent State Council policy briefing, Fan Yifei, vice governor of the People’s Bank of China, answered questions from a reporter from the Economic Daily时 said.
Where is the reduction in financing costs?
Fan Yifei cites two sets of figures: one is the weighted average interest rate of corporate loans in the first five months of this year, which is 4.64%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.18 percentage points; the second is the newly issued inclusive small and micro loans interest rate of 4.93%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.3 percentage points.
Fan Yifei said that he will continue to implement a prudent monetary policy and do a good job in cross-cycle policy design.
It is necessary to continue to release the potential of LPR reform, implement the regulatory requirements for optimizing deposit interest rates, and promote further reductions in actual loan interest rates.
It is necessary to make good use of two monetary policy tools that directly reach the real economy to give further assistance to small and micro enterprises.
It is necessary to promote more convenient financing for small and micro enterprises, and the overall financing cost will be steadily and slightly reduced.
"Fees reduction and profit distribution involve not only the banking industry, but also many market players." Guo Wuping, director of the Consumer Protection Bureau of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that since last year, the financial regulatory authorities have made great efforts to promote the financial system to reduce fees and profitability.
In 2020, the banking industry will cut fees and profits of 356.8 billion yuan, an increase of 40% compared with 2019. In conjunction with policies such as lower interest rates and deferred loan repayment, the financial system has achieved the goal of reasonable profit distribution of 1.5 trillion yuan to the real economy.
Guo Wuping emphasized that in addition to banks' need to reduce fees and make profits, other market entities involved should also do the same.
Guo Wuping introduced that there are currently multiple market entities and multiple charging issues. For example, some large Internet platforms collect fees by guiding customers, which may account for 6% and 7%, plus some risk mitigation measures. Market players charge 6% and 7% fees, while banks may charge only 4% and 5%.
"In some cases, these three aspects together account for about 20%." Guo Wuping said that in the next step, we must not only regulate bank charges, but also increase the standardization of other market entities related to financing charges, including Large-scale Internet platforms and other market entities that provide risk mitigation measures, etc.
Fan Yifei said that he could not fully agree with the market's view that "payment and fee reduction is for financial institutions to "cut meat"."
He said that the entire industry chain will jointly assume the responsibility of reducing fees and further optimize the payment industry cost transmission mechanism.
"It is necessary to ensure that this fee reduction policy is effective, realize benefits and market players, and earnestly achieve'fee reduction without service reduction'." Fan Yifei said that some payment service market players are facing certain development pressures. Based on the current market conditions, they are formulating Special investigations and studies will be conducted during the policy process, involving cost calculations and industry impact assessments, to reasonably determine the subject of fee reduction, fee reduction projects, fee reduction scope and implementation period to ensure that the overall impact of fee reduction measures on the industry is controllable.
In addition, long-term measures such as institutional design and rule-making have been adopted to ensure the high-quality and sustainable development of the payment industry.
The first is to promote the growth of both the payment industry and the real economy, and expand the "cake" of the market.
The second is to optimize the structure of the payment service market.
By simultaneously reducing the cost-side charges of card issuing banks, clearing institutions, etc., the cost pressure of payment service entities, especially small and medium-sized payment institutions, can be reduced.
The third is to maintain the order of fair competition in the market. In view of the current situation of high market concentration of payment institutions, the existence of monopoly, and the limited living space of some small and medium-sized institutions, the top-level system design can be improved to guide payment institutions to truly return to small-value, Convenient to pay for the source.
To correct the improper behavior of market monopoly, it is necessary to give better play to the role of clearing institutions, gradually form a coordinated and sustainable pricing system for the industry in various scenarios such as online payment, accelerate the structural reform of payment service supply, optimize the management of license resources, and promote the payment service market healthy growth.