Tag Archives: policy lending

BANKING: Banks Finally Stand Up To Beijing

Bottom line: The refusal of many banks to follow a Beijing directive to support the sagging property market looks encouraging, and could show these state-run lenders are finally beginning to behave more commercially.

Banks break with policy-lending past

It appears I owe an apology to big Chinese state-run banks, after years of calling them policy lackeys of Beijing with very little commercial instinct. Just a day after criticizing top lender ICBC (HKEx: 1398; Shanghai: 601398) for making a blatantly political $4.3 billion infrastructure loan to Pakistan (previous post), a new report is saying a growing number of banks are defying a recent Beijing order to boost their mortgage lending to support the sagging domestic real estate market.

This kind of action certainly won’t please economic planners in Beijing, but it marks a huge step forward for the banks in their drive to become more commercial and earn some real respect from investors. Read Full Post…