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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，这些新项目是一项高风险的实验，旨在改变储户对投资的看法。多年来，散户投资者将现金投入国有银行出售和支持的类似存款的投资产品。这类产品的本金被认为是有担保的，但银行却将资金投向高风险借款人，如小型房地产开发商或煤矿企业。到2016年，这些银行的财富管理部门监管的资产约占银行总资产的13%。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，于是出手进行了严厉整治。
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.
保本理财产品已被禁止。与此同时，银行的财富资产被剥离成了新的子公司。这些子公司必须逐步减少旧的类似存款的产品，并根据资产净值设计新的产品。投资银行中金公司估计，到2020年这些新子公司管理的资产将达到26万亿元。正是它们邀请了外国投资者建立合资企业。
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。几代外国金融家一直在敲中国的大门，他们关注着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，高盛获准成立了第一家外国合资证券公司。但当你回顾过去20年的时候你会发现，这些发展似乎并不引人注目，回报也很微薄。
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规模足够大、能够抵御竞争时才会对外开放。一些外国零售银行推出了雄心勃勃的扩张计划，但后来被国内银行巨头广泛的分行网络击败，退出了市场。合资证券公司花了十多年时间才将多数控股权移交给外国投资者。直到移动支付占据主导地位，竞争变得毫无意义，Visa和万事达等支付公司才被拒之于市场之外。
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，外资企业所面对的不是一个成熟的、不可逾越的竞争市场。监管机构的全面改革意味着它们实际上正在进入中国这个可能成为全球最大零售财富市场的早期阶段。
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.
这一点在如今提供的金融产品中体现得很明显。近年来，中国的共同基金业以惊人的速度增长。许多公司现在管理着1万亿元的资产。货币市场基金无处不在。但产品设计仍处于起步阶段。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，他的团队将提供量化产品，如算法和基于因素的策略，以及跨境和另类资产投资。他指出：“目前中国还没有这种产品。”
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
