Tag: China

Chinese-owned banks in Europe

Bank of China and ICBC are obviously Chinese banks. Less well-known, the following banks are also controlled by Chinese shareholders:

ATLANTICO Europa (Portugal) is owned by “a Hong Kong financial group“

Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (Luxembourg) is owned by Legend Holdings (Hong Kong)

Bison Bank (Portugal) is owned by Bison Capital Holding (Hong Kong)

Haitong (Portugal) is owned by Haitong Securities (Shanghai)

Nagelmackers (Belgium) is owned by Anbang, which is owned by the Chinese Ministry of Finance (Beijing)

Saxo Bank (Denmark) is owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (Hangzhou)

Chinese financial statistics

Financial Market Reports, includes outstanding bonds

Aggregate assets and liabilities of Financial Institutions (banks, insurers, securities institutions)

Monetary Policy Reports, includes breakdown of loans and deposits by borrower (households, enterprises and public entities, non-banking financial institutions, overseas), lending volumes according to size of banks, Aggregate funding to the real economy according to loans, bonds, other funding; balance of payments, foreign exchange reserves

Monetary Policy Instruments, including Open Market Operations (short term reverse repo), Required Reserves (required reserve ratios), Interest Rates, Lending Facilities

Interest rates and exchange rates

Money and Banking Statistics, includes Balance Sheet of Monetary Authority (i.e. People’s Bank of China)

Wat de Belgische overheid kan leren van China

De Chinese regering heeft de ambitie om tegen het jaar 2020 een sociaal kredietsysteem op poten te zetten. Dankzij een systeem van toezicht op de bevolking geeft de overheid mensen een individuele kredietscore.  Een goede score wordt beloond, een slecht afgestraft.

Zo moeten ‘goede’ Chinese huurders bijvoorbeeld geen waarborg betalen. Mensen met een lage score moeten langer wachten in het ziekenhuis of kunnen geen vliegtuigtickets meer kopen. Continue reading “Wat de Belgische overheid kan leren van China”

Social credit

The Chinese authorities are implementing a Social Credit System. People’s behavior results in rewards (e.g. renting a car without having to pay a deposit) or restrictions (e.g. getting barred from buying plane tickets). So it’s kind of a big carrot and stick mechanism.

As is often the case, it’s not clear what is hype and what is true about the Social Credit System.

This article does a good job explaining the misrepresentations in the media.

Now, there are a few things missing from articles about the Social Credit System that deserve further investigation. Continue reading “Social credit”

Problems with Christopher Balding’s analysis of Chinese banks and currency

Professor Christopher Balding has published a blog post with his views on the link between the China’s banking system and its currency: Can China Address Bank Problems without Having Currency Problems?

He believes that “it is much more likely that if there are systemic banking issues that currency problems will also arise.”

It is laudable that Prof. Balding summarizes his arguments. By being explicit about the assumptions, readers don’t just have to trust his opinion. Instead they can follow the logic and evaluate the strong and weaker points themselves.

The goal of this post is to counter some of the points listed by Balding to support his conclusion. Continue reading “Problems with Christopher Balding’s analysis of Chinese banks and currency”