Greenspan put”汉语怎么说？“格林斯潘对策”。但叫什么无所谓：因为中国继续发出信号，表明不愿意像西方那样，让增长来“劫持”它的货币政策。中国称今年经济增长目标为7.5%，这是8年来最低的水平。这一消息打击了中国银行业，此前，投资者对中国政府将放松货币政策以维持增长和信心的预期，推动了中国银行类股的一波反弹，在格林斯潘担任美联储(Fed)主席时，他就是这么干的。中国四大银行——中国工商银行(ICBC)、中国农业银行(ABC)、中国建设银行(CCB)和中国银行(BoC)——今年的市场表现一直比恒生指数(Hang Seng Index)高出10%。昨天经济增长目标宣布后，四大银行打破了持续上涨的良好表现，平均下跌2%，跌幅高出恒生指数四成。经济增长放缓就意味着贷款增长放缓，而对于这些银行而言，贷款仍然是它们的主要收入来源：过去9个月里，工行四分之三的营运收入来自贷款。这四家银行的净息差去年平均水平达到可观的2.5%，但随着用作营运资本等用途的贷款需求不振，净息差可能会面临压力。为了提振商业，按揭利率已经开始下降。
不过手续费及佣金收入增长放缓所造成的冲击更加令人担忧。近几年，此类收入的增长步伐超出了净息差。例如，工商银行的手续费收入在去年后三个季度的增速是净息差收入增速的两倍。经济放缓会损害银行卡费和咨询服务等业务的收入，使这一领域的收入难以维持40%的增长。
尽管在2011年有着上佳表现，但是中国四大银行的市账率仍然维持在1.4倍左右，低于汇丰银行(HSBC)的2.5倍和渣打银行(Standard Chartered)的3倍。但是由于中国完全没有实施格林斯潘式宽松的任何迹象，有充分理由认为当前的市账率是合理的。

How do you say “Greenspan put” in Chinese? Gelinsepan dui’ce. But no matter: China continues to signal that it does not intend its monetary policy to be the hostage to growth that it has become in the west. China has said its economy will grow 7.5 per cent this year – its lowest target in eight years. The news dented China’s banks, which had been rallying on expectations that monetary policy would be loosened to maintain growth and confidence, as Greenspan did when chairman of the Federal Reserve.

China’s big four banks – ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of China – had been outperforming the Hang Seng index by 10 per cent this year. Following yesterday’s growth announcement, the four broke the winning streak, falling by an average 2 per cent – two-fifths more than the index. A slower economy means slower loan growth. For these banks, lending is still their bread and butter: three quarters of ICBC’s operating revenues came from these means in the past nine months. Net interest margins, which averaged a decent 2.5 per cent last year at the top four, could come under pressure as demand to borrow for things such as working capital falters. Mortgage rates have already started to come down in an effort to boost business.
More of a concern, though, is the impact of slower growth on fee and commission income. This has been growing at a faster pace than net interest income in recent years. At ICBC, for example, fee income grew twice as fast as net interest income in the last nine months from a year earlier. A softer economy will hurt banks’ ability to maintain the 40 per cent growth in income in this segment from services such as card fees and advisory services this year.
Despite the outperformance so far in 2011, however, China’s big four banks are still trading at about 1.4 times price to book. This looks cheap against HSBC, at 2.5 times, and Standard Chartered, at 3 times. But without signs of any easing even remotely Greenspan-like, there is good reason to think these discounts justified.