http://www.ecocn.org/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=193286&from^^uid=449928

Banks and interest rates
银行与利率
Administer with care
需要小心监管

Low interest rates are squeezing banks’ profits. Higher ones may do the same
低利率正在压缩银行利润，高利率也好不到哪里

Jun 29th 2013  |From the print edition

1 BE CAREFUL what you wish for. Bankers in the rich world have moaned incessantly over the past few years about how low interest rates are squeezing the life out of the banking system. Now that long-term interest rates have risen in anticipation of the Federal Reserve’s “tapering” of asset purchases, and changes in short-term rates seem closer than they once did, some are wondering whether higher rates are all they are cracked up to be. Rising rates may restore banks’ profitability but too sudden an increase may damage their health.

人们对于利率的期望需要谨慎。富裕世界的银行家们过去几年来一直在抱怨低利率如何将银行系统逼向绝路。现在长期利率由于美联储的减少资产购买的计划而预期上涨，短期利率的变动也比曾经要小，一些人想知道是否利率越高越好。升高的利率也许会重铸银行利润但是利率上升太快也同样会损害银行的健康。

2 Banks usually make most of their money on the spread, or difference, between the rate of interest they pay savers and the one they charge borrowers. This spread has narrowed as policy rates in rich countries have fallen, because loans have become cheaper but rates on deposits can go no lower than zero. In America, for instance, the average “net interest margin” at banks supervised by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has fallen to its lowest level since 2006 (itself a 16-year low for small banks). Meagre profits have encouraged some banks to make riskier loans or buy riskier assets in a hunt for yield.

银行通常会尽量将他们的钱用于不同的地方，或者在存款者和贷款者之间赚取利率差价。不过这种散播方式已经随着富裕国家的政策利率降低而减少了，因为贷款利率正在降低但存款利率再低也不能低于零。例如在美国，联邦存款保险公司监管的银行净利率的平均值已经跌倒了自2006年以来的最低水平（对一些小银行来说是他们自己的16年来的最低水平）。贫瘠的利润促使一些银行为了高收益而发放高风险的贷款或购买高风险的资产。

3 An increase in interest rates would fatten net interest margins at those banks where the rates they charge borrowers rise more quickly than their own cost of funding. SNL Financial, a data firm, reckons that big American banks would gain from higher rates as, on average, a greater share of their assets than of their liabilities would reprice within a year. One exception is Citigroup, which could see its interest margin squeezed. Banks in Japan stand to gain from higher rates, too, according to Nomura. Higher rates may also be good for investment banks, which should benefit from increased trading and volatility in bonds if yields keep rising.

一些银行收取贷款者利率上升的比自己的资金成本快，利率的攀升可能会使那些银行的净利息变多。SNL FINANCAL，一家数据研究公司，预计美国的大银行可能会从走高的利率中收获颇丰，因为平均来说一年内他们的重新定价的资产比例将大于负债比例。不过花旗集团可能是个例外，他们的边际利润可能会压缩。据野村证券称，日本的银行业一定会从高利率中获利。更高的利率对投行来说可能也是好事，如果银行的收益持续上升，他们会从增长的交易量和波动的债券价格中受益。

4 Elsewhere the outlook is less sanguine. The Bank of England, releasing its annual report on financial stability on June 26th, fretted that margins at British banks may at first be compressed as rates rise. In Germany small savings banks are also at risk because they offer fixed-rate loans while taking variable-rate deposits. A similar area of vulnerability in America may be in credit unions, a type of financial co-operative, which have also taken on interest-rate risk through fixed-rate lending funded by variable-rate deposits.

然而其他地方的前景就不那么乐观了。刚在六月26号发布了他们的财务稳定性年度报告的英国银行现在感到十分焦虑，因为英国的银行利润可能由于利率的上升而被压缩。在德国，小型储蓄银行同样面临危机，因为他们在吸收浮动利率存款的同时提供固定利率的贷款。在美国同样脆弱的地带可能是在信用社，一种金融合作机构，他们同样面临着类似的危险。


5 Interest margins change relatively slowly. The immediate threat to banks is a fall in the market value of assets that banks hold. As yields of government bonds and other fixed-income securities rise, their prices fall. Because the amounts of outstanding debt are so large, the effects can be big. In its latest annual report the Bank for International Settlements, the Basel-based bank for central banks, reckons that a hypothetical three-percentage-point increase in yields across all bond maturities could result in losses to all holders of government bonds equivalent to 15-35% of GDP in countries such as France, Italy, Japan and Britain (see chart).

利差的改变相对比较缓慢。对银行的最紧迫的威胁是来自银行自有资产的市场价值缩水。由于政府债券和其他固定收入证券的价值上升，他们的价格可能会下降。因为未偿付债券的数额如此之大，这种效果可能会非常显著。在国际清算银行最新的年度报告中，据总部在巴塞尔的中央银行们预计，在像法国，意大利，日本和英国这样的国家，所有公债到期时引发的预期3%的收益递增可能会导致所有政府债券持有者的损失，这个损失大约相当于整个国家GDP的15%-30%。

6 Here again the effect on banks would vary widely from country to country. Government bonds account for less than 2% of the assets held by British banks, compared with about 25% of assets in the case of Japanese banks. But simply looking at holdings of government bonds probably understates the risk to banks of an upward lurch in yields, since they hold many other fixed-income assets that would also fall in value. Some 40% of British banks’ assets would have to be revalued if interest rates were to rise abruptly, according to the Bank of England. Furthermore, banks may be indirectly exposed to losses on fixed-income securities through other channels—loans to clients that are big holders of these instruments, say, or changes in the value of securities that are held as collateral.

这里银行的作用又一次在国家间呈现不同的效用。英国银行持有的政府债券只占其自有资产的不到2%，相比来说日本的银行的政府债券持有率就占到25%了。不过单凭持有政府债券的比例这一点似乎会低估银行收益陡升的风险，因为他们持有的许多其他固定收益资产似乎也在贬值。据英格兰银行称，如果利率继续陡升的话英国的一些银行的40%资产将被重新定价。而且，银行似乎将会通过其他渠道间接地受到固定收入债券减值的伤害，就是贷款的客户都是那些机构的大型持有者，换句话说，这些改变价值的债券其实是作为抵押品被持有的。

7 A third risk to banks from higher rates is that more of their customers will struggle to repay their loans. Quantifying this risk is difficult since loan losses are influenced not just by interest rates but also by economic growth and employment, both of which would need to improve for central bankers to dial back their interventions. Even so, there are worrying signs. In Britain almost a fifth of secured loans have gone to households that have less than ￡200 ($307) a month left after paying essential costs, according to the Bank of England. Higher rates could push many into default. The dilemma for policymakers is that keeping rates low for long is dangerous. So is letting them rise too quickly.

银行的来自利率的第三个风险是由于他们的客户都在艰难地偿还贷款。要量化这个风险是很难的，因为贷款损失不仅受利率影响，而且会受经济增长和就业率的影响，二者都需要中央银行家们调整他们的干预措施。即便如此，还是有一些令人担忧的信号。据英格兰银行称，在英国几乎五分之一的担保贷款都流向了那些出去基本支出后月收入不足200磅家庭。更高的利率可能会导致更多坏账。对决策者来说这是种进退两难的困境，因为持续让利率走低会是件危险的事，而让利率太快升高同样如此。