China’s smaller banks are growing rapidly, bucking the flatlining trend of their larger peers, by aggressively expanding their balance sheets and piling on the risk being shunned by the big four.
The diverging paths of China’s lenders comes as interest-rate deregulation squeezes net interest margins and the slowing economy tips more borrowers into default: non-performing loans have more than doubled over the past two years, official figures show. Analysts widely believe the true scale of soured loans is even higher.
Yet while the bigger players are drawing in their horns, smaller rivals are taking the opportunity — and risk — of pushing out more loans.