2021年经济学人 外资银行抢滩中国市场,生存几何?(2)（在线收听）

For China's regulators, the new ventures are a high-stakes experiment meant to transform how savers think about investing. For years retail investors ploughed cash into deposit-like investment products sold and backed by state banks. The principal on such products was considered guaranteed, but the banks funnelled the cash towards high-risk borrowers such as small property developers or coal-mining outfits. By 2016 the banks' wealth-management arms oversaw around 13% of total banking assets. But regulators cracked down, no longer willing to see banks and ordinary savers exposed to the intensifying risks.

对中国监管机构来说，设立这些新的合资企业是高风险的实验，意在改变储户对投资的认知。多年来，散户投资者购买国有银行发售或背书的类似存款的理财产品，他们认为这类产品的本金是有保障的，但银行把这些资金输送给了小型房地产开发商或煤矿企业等高风险的借款方。到2016年，银行的财富管理部门管理的资金占到银行总资产的13％左右。但是监管机构不愿再看着银行和普通储户面临的风险日益加剧，于是出手严厉整治。

Guaranteed products have been banned. Meanwhile banks' wealth assets have been spun into new subsidiaries. These must wind down the old deposit-like products and design new ones based on net asset value. In 2020 the new units had 26trn yuan in assets under management, reckons CICC, an investment bank. It is with them that foreign investors have been invited to establish joint ventures.

保本理财产品已被取缔。与此同时，财富管理部门从银行剥离出来，成为新的子公司。这些子公司必须逐步减少过去那些类似存款的理财产品，并设计基于资产净值的新产品。投资银行中金公司估计，2020年，这些新子公司管理的资产达到了26万亿元。外国投资机构正是受邀和这些子公司成立合资公司。

The call sounds familiar. Foreign financiers have been knocking at China's door for generations, with an eye to every corner of the industry, from retail banking to securities. In 1995 CCB and Morgan Stanley, another Wall Street bank, set up CICC; in 2004 Goldman was allowed to establish the first foreign securities joint venture. But when you look back over the past two decades, the developments seem underwhelming and the returns meagre.

这种呼唤似曾相识。几代外国金融家都在敲中国市场的大门，他们看上了这个行业从零售银行到证券的每个角落。1995年，中国建设银行和另一家华尔街银行摩根士丹利成立了中金公司；2004年，高盛获准成立了中国第一家外国合资证券公司。但回顾过去20年会发现，事情的发展似乎不尽如人意，回报也很有限。

That was largely because China opened up only when home-grown firms were big enough to withstand competition. Some foreign retail banks launched gung-ho expansion plans only to quit the market later, defeated by domestic giants' extensive branch networks. Securities joint ventures have taken more than a decade to pass majority control to foreign investors. Payments firms such as Visa and Mastercard were shut out until mobile payments became dominant and competition futile.

这在很大程度上是因为中国只有在本土企业发展壮大到足以抵御竞争时才会对外开放。一些外国零售银行推出了狂热的扩张计划，后来却被国内银行巨头庞大的支行网络击败，退出了市场。在合资证券公司，外国投资者花了十几年时间才获得多数控股权。Visa和万事达等支付公司一直被拦在门外，直到移动支付变成了主导支付手段，竞争已变得徒有其名。

Wealth management could be different. For one, the foreigners do not face a mature market with insurmountable competition. Regulators' sweeping reforms mean that they are in fact entering what could become the world's largest market for retail wealth at an early stage.

财富管理可能会有所不同。首先，外资企业面对的并不是一个难以赢得竞争的成熟市场。监管机构的全面改革意味着它们是于早期阶段进入一个日后可能是世界最大的零售理财市场。

This is evident in the financial products on offer today. China's mutual-fund industry has grown at a fantastic pace in recent years. Many firms now oversee 1trn yuan in assets. Money-market funds are ubiquitous. But product design is still in its infancy. Global firms are expected to bring a new level of sophistication. Tuan Lam of Goldman says his group will offer quantitative products such as algorithmic and factorbased strategies, and cross-border and alternative-asset investments. "These are not present in China right now," he notes.

这一点在目前提供的金融产品中就体现得很明显。近年来，中国共同基金行业的发展速度惊人。许多公司现在管理着一万亿元的资产。货币市场基金比比皆是。但产品设计仍很稚嫩。人们期待全球公司能够带来更成熟高级的产品。高盛的段林表示，高盛将提供基于因子的算法策略等量化产品，以及跨境和另类资产投资。“目前中国还没有这些产品。”他指出。