Domestic bankers confident of high-quality growth

The confidence of domestic bankers in China's economic growth remains relatively strong.

As China is transitioning from high-speed growth to high-quality growth, they expect to see an increase in steady economic performance.

More than 70 percent of bankers projected that Chinese economic growth will stay above 6 percent year-on-year in the coming three years, a joint survey released by the China Banking Association and PwC said on Thursday.

The survey also found that bankers are cautiously optimistic about the sector's state of operations in the next three years. The novel coronavirus outbreak though has heightened market expectations of downward pressure on the economy.

About 70 percent of the bankers said the growth of operating income may be lower than 10 percent year-on-year during this period. About 40 percent estimated that the increase in profit after tax will be up to 5 percent.

Taking a long-term view, the bankers are confident profitability will keep improving and they do not expect to see a rapid increase in nonperforming loans.

Around 60 percent of the bankers said the nonperforming loan ratio of Chinese banks will stay between 0.5 percent and 2 percent over the next three years.

The survey received answers to 2,258 questionnaires from various types of banks. The survey was conducted in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities as well as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The banking sector has deepened its strategic realignment and risk control efforts as it adapted to changes in the domestic and world economic situation. It also boosted the ability of the sector to serve the real economy, the part which produces goods and services.

"As China is steadily promoting interest rate liberalization, commercial banks will face increasing challenges in business and profit models. Financial institutions will eventually find their competitive differentiation and form a diversified competitive landscape, as soon as they precisely determine their market positioning based on their areas of expertise and pooled resources to offer financial products with distinguishing features," said Ba Shusong, chief economist of the China Banking Association.

Nearly 65 percent of the bankers said the promotion of their characteristic operations is the focal point of the banking sector's strategies in 2019. This was followed by further development of smart banking (53.9 percent) and efforts to step up support for the real economy and supply-side structural reform (47.3 percent).

The bankers paid extensive attention to strengthening risk management and internal controls in the face of an increasingly complicated business environment. Survey participants said among various types of risks, they worry most about credit risks.

"Bankers tried hard to elevate risk management to a higher level amid the complex macroeconomic environment. They said what they need to do is improve risk management capabilities by optimizing the structure of loans in terms of industrial and regional distribution, refining credit management mechanisms, and improving the sense of responsibility for loan approval," Ba said.

Financial regulators said they anticipate the risk of an increase in the banking sector's nonperforming loan ratio will be short-lived and limited.

"Most of the companies that may not repay loans (could be those that) have temporary difficulties because of the novel coronavirus outbreak, rather than business failures. Even if the nonperforming loan ratio climbed up slightly, our banking sector is still resilient to risks," Xiao Yuanqi, chief risk officer and spokesperson of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said at a news conference on Feb 25.

By the end of the fourth quarter last year, the outstanding balance of loan loss provisions of commercial banks was 4.5 trillion yuan ($648.6 billion). The outstanding balance of nonperforming loans was 2.41 trillion yuan, data from the commission showed.