经济学人40:远未结束 False summit

 　　Finance and Economics；Spanish banks; False summit;

　　财经；西班牙银行；远未结束；

　　Mark down loans, raise capital, repeat；

　　减少贷款，提高资金，重复此道；

　　Like exhausted¹ climbers nearing the summit only to find a higher peak beyond, Spain's flagging banks face another push for the top. In February the Spanish government hoped at last to put an end to worries about lenders' health when it asked them to set aside billions in provisions and to raise more capital. It also pushed for mergers² to reduce capacity and improve margins³ in an overcrowded market.

　　正如精疲力竭的攀登者接近峰顶时才发现前方还有座更高的山峰一样，西班牙疲弱的银行们面临着又一个困难。2月，西班牙政府要求银行按规定预留数十亿并筹集更多的资金，希望以此最终消除有关银行健康的担忧。政府还促使并购者们在过度拥挤的市场中减小规模，提高利润。

　　These measures provide some comfort. Spain's central bank says that since the middle of 2008, banks have set aside 112 billion Euro(148 billion Dollar) against loan losses. This year it asked them to set aside another 54 billion Euro in provisions and new capital (although this double-counted some write-downs that had already taken place). With these plump cushions, Spain's banks can shrug⁴ off losses amounting to about half of their loans to property developers. The IMF now reckons that Spain's largest banks have enough capital to withstand most shocks, although its smaller and weaker ones remain vulnerable.

　　这些举措带来了一些安慰。西班牙央行声称自从2008年中期以来，银行们已经预留了1120亿英镑（1480亿美元）来应对贷款损失。今年央行要求银行们再预留540亿英镑以及新的资金（尽管这样重复计算了有些已经发生的减记金额）。有了这些充足的缓冲，即使贷款损失高达房产开发商贷款总额的一半，西班牙的银行们也不屑一顾。现在国际货币基金组织认为西班牙的大银行们有足够的资金来抵御大部分冲击，尽管其较小较弱的银行依旧脆弱。

　　European economy

　　欧洲经济

　　As a result of the write-downs, regulators have achieved one objective. Few investors⁵ now fret⁶ about property-development loans blowing up Spanish banks. The worry now is about all the other loans on banks' balance-sheets, against which there are almost no provisions (see chart). Take residential⁷ mortgages, which have so far held up remarkably⁸ well. Less than 3% of residential mortgages have started to wobble, a surprise in a country where unemployment is close to 25%.

　　监管者已通过减记达到了一个目标。现在很少有投资者担忧房产开发贷款会弄垮西班牙银行。现在的担忧是银行资产负债表上的其它贷款，而这些几乎没有预留资金。（见图表）。以目前为止表现还不错的住房按揭贷款为例，在一个失业率接近25% 的国家，只有不到3%的住房按揭贷款开始出现问题，这令人惊讶。

　　Spanish officials argue that mortgage losses are so low because the loans were mostly issued to creditworthy borrowers with low loan-to-value ratios and no incentive⁹ to walk away from their debts. There was almost no subprime lending and little buy-to-let activity. Affordability¹⁰ has been helped by low interest rates.

　　西班牙官员声称抵押贷款损失之所以如此之低是因为贷款大多发放给信誉良好的借款人，他们贷款价值比率较低，没有逃离其债务的动机。西班牙几乎没有次级贷款和随意贷款的行为。低利率也有助于确保支付能力。

　　Investors will take some convincing. “People just do not believe the numbers,” says one analyst¹¹. “There has been a lot of ‘extending and pretending' or renegotiation of mortgages.” One mechanism¹² by which banks are holding down bad loans is by encouraging struggling customers to switch from normal mortgages to ones where they repay only the interest. The latest data show that terms are being modified on some 26,000 mortgages a month.

　　投资者们将会有些信服。“人们只是不相信这些数字，”一位分析员这么说道。“有很多关于“扩大和假装”或是重新就抵押贷款进行谈判的说法”。银行阻止坏账上升的机制之一，就是鼓励那些苦苦挣扎的客户们从常规抵押贷款转向那种他们只需支付利息的模式。最新的数据显示一个月之内就有26000份抵押贷款条约做了修改。

　　The proportion of wobbly mortgages in Spain looks low when compared with those in Ireland. There the central bank and BlackRock, an asset manager, reckoned that actual lifetime losses on residential mortgages would range from 7% to 12% (meaning that rates of non-performing loans, some of which may in time start to perform again, could be higher still). Even if losses in Spain are far below those in Ireland, banks are still likely to need a lot more capital.

　　与爱尔兰相比，西班牙银行的抵押贷款坏账比例看上去较低。爱尔兰央行以及某资金管理机构BlackRock认为，住房抵押贷款的实际寿命损失在7%至12%之间（意味着不良贷款率可能会更高）。即使西班牙的贷款损失远低于爱尔兰，银行们仍然可能需要更多的资金。

　　Some investors reckon 60 billion-80 billion Euro is required to restore confidence. The IMF is coy about giving a number, but it too thinks more capital is needed, perhaps in asset-management companies set up to look after dud loans. But attracting private capital will be tough. That would pass the problem to the Spanish government, whose finances are under scrutiny¹³, or to Europe's bail-out funds, whose firepower is more limited than advertised.

　　有些投资者认为重塑信心需要600-800亿英镑。对此谨慎的国际货币基金组织未给出具体数字，但它也认为需要更多的资金，也许正是那些用来监管不良贷款的资产管理公司需要更多的资金。但是吸引私人资本将会很难。这将会把问题转嫁给已接受财政审查的西班牙政府，或是火力比宣传的更为有限的欧洲纾困基金。

1 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

2 mergers   

n.（两个公司的）合并( merger的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Mergers fall into three categories: horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate. 合并分为以下三种：横向合并，纵向合并和混合合并。 来自辞典例句
• Many recent mergers are concentrated within specific industries, particularly in retailing, airlines and communications. 现代许多合并企业集中进行某些特定业务，在零售业、民航和通讯业中更是如此。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

3 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

4 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。

5 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

6 fret   

v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损

参考例句：

• Don't fret.We'll get there on time.别着急，我们能准时到那里。
• She'll fret herself to death one of these days.她总有一天会愁死的.

7 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

8 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

9 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

10 affordability   

可购性

参考例句：

• Performance-Based Logistics Affordability: Can We Afford Categorical Conversion to Performance-Based Acquisition? 基于性能的后期的可承受性：能否担负得起向基于性能的采办的无条件的转变？
• There would be no crisis of affordability, as't for food or clothing. 就想食物与服装一样，因为供给没有危机。

11 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

12 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

13 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。