Chinese banks are engaged in a fierce lobbying campaign to soften new rules that would curtail shadow banking, in a test of the government’s determination to rein in runaway debt.
The People’s Bank of China and four financial regulatory agencies jointly issued draft rules last month to eliminate implicit guarantees, regulatory arbitrage and maturity mismatch in the asset management sector.
Regulators have issued a steady stream of rules since 2010 to curb risky non-bank lending, but bankers said the latest rules went far beyond previous efforts. In focus is the Rmb29tn ($4.4tn) market for “wealth management products” that banks market to retail investors as a higher-yielding alternative to deposits.