经济学人57:Europe’s zombie banks 欧洲的僵尸银行

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　　欧洲的僵尸银行

　　Blight¹ of the living dead

　　活死人没有黎明

　　Europe’s financial system is in a terrible state, and nothing much is being done about it

　　欧洲金融体系现状极差，也没多少改观

　　Jul 13th 2013

　　2013年7月13日

　　“PROBABLY the most successful monetary²-policy measure undertaken in recent times.” That isMario Draghi’s self-effacing judgment³ on the outright⁴ monetary transactions (OMT) programme,the promise made by the European Central Bank (ECB) last summer to buy the bonds of strugglingeuro-area governments. The ECB’s president deserves credit for bringing calm to bond markets.But in reality the situation is still awful, and Europe’s banks are at the heart of theproblem.

　　欧洲央行行长德拉吉谦虚地作出评价：“也许，直接货币交易是近期最成功的货币政策。” 去年夏季，欧洲央行（ECB）许下诺言，要利用直接货币交易政策来购买欧元区经济困难国家的债券。ECB行长平定了债券市场，值得嘉奖。但是，实际情况还是很糟糕，欧洲各个银行现在处在了问题的中心。

　　The euro-zone economy has contracted for six consecutive⁵ quarters. The IMF this week revisedits 2013 forecast down again: it expects the euro zone to shrink by 0.6% this year. (Just torub things in, the fund adjusted its forecasts for Britain upwards⁶.) The outlook in the coreeuro-zone economies has worsened, thanks in part to a slowdown in China: in May German exportssuffered their sharpest fall for two years. But the brunt of the pain is being borne by theperipheral economies.

　　欧元区经济萎靡的状况已经连续了6个季度了。IMF这周再次重新修订了对2013年度的预计：今年欧元区经济下降0.6%（另外，该组织调整了对英国经济的预测，认为英国今年经济能有所回升）。欧元区核心国家的经济前景进一步恶化了，部分是因为中国经济发展速度降低：今年五月德国向中国的出口量跌至了两年最低。但是，惨剧影响的却是边缘国家的经济。

　　Greece is in its sixth straight year of recession; Spain’s unemployment rate stands at almost27%; Italy’s credit rating was downgraded this week. Beno?t Coeuré, an ECB board member, gotit right on July 10th when he said that the euro zone “is still engulfed⁸ in a severe crisis”. The OMT programme may keep the financial speculators at bay, but pressure can build on thestreets as well as in bond yields. Years of joblessness, economic hardship and edicts fromcreditor countries are straining the political fabric⁹ in Portugal and Greece.

　　希腊的经济衰退已经连续6年了；西班牙的失业率高达27%；本周意大利的信用等级有所下降。ECB执行委员会会员Benoit Coeure在7月10日表示：“欧元区仍陷入严重的危机中”，事实确实如此。直接货币交易正常也许会阻止人们在金融上的投机行为，但是给人们和债券收益也增添了压力。连年失业、经济困难以及债权国的法令都让葡萄牙和希腊的政治岌岌可危。

　　Credit corpses¹⁰

　　信贷不再

　　Banks are central to Europe’s prospects¹¹. The fear, especially in peripheral⁷ economies, is arepeat of Japan’s experience in the 1990s, when “zombie” banks staggered along for years,neither healthy enough to lend to firms nor weak enough to collapse¹². There are the sameunvital signs in Europe. The average price-to-book ratio for European banks remains¹³ below one,suggesting that investors¹⁴ think lenders are worth more dead than alive. In America, wherebanks were recapitalised quickly, the ratio exceeds one. Italy’s two big lenders, UniCreditand Intesa Sanpaolo, have ratios of 0.34 and 0.42 respectively.

　　欧洲的未来，都寄托给了银行。欧元区经济体都害怕，特别是欧元区边缘经济体，他们会重复日本90年代的经历——银行“半死不活”，几年来一直摇摇晃晃，死不下去也活不过来，借不出钱也倒不下去。欧洲银行也出现了类似迹象，奄奄一息。欧洲银行的平均市净率低于1，意味着投资商们认为这些借贷银行赖活着不如死了。美国银行迅速进行了资本重组，市净率超过了1。意大利两大借贷银行联合信贷和联合圣保罗的市净率分别是0.34和0.42。

　　The suspicion of European lenders is well-founded. The amount of shaky loans keeps climbing:worryingly, there are more non-performing loans in the Italian banking¹⁵ system than there iscore “Tier-1” capital. Lots of peripheral banks have been loading up on their owngovernments’ bonds: Portugal’s three biggest banks increased their holdings of Portuguesesovereign debt by 16% in the first quarter of the year. Mortgages account for even more bankassets’ and house prices keep falling—at the fastest pace on record in Spain in the firstquarter.

　　怀疑欧洲借贷银行不是没有理由的。不良信贷的数目仍在上升——在意大利银行系统中，不良信贷的数目比核心第一级资本还多，情况非常令人担忧。很多边缘国家的银行都依靠政府债券支撑——葡萄牙的三大银行在今年第一季度买入了更多的葡萄牙国债，持有率增至16%。银行资产中房贷更多了，房价持续下降，西班牙第一季度房价下跌速度达到了历史最快。

　　Weren’t the Europeans supposed to be cleaning up their balance-sheets? Private-equity¹⁶ firmsthat have raised billions to buy up distressed¹⁷ assets from European banks are kicking theirheels while they wait for deals to arrive. Regulators worry that banks, rather than writingoff or selling bad loans, have been fiddling¹⁸ with the models that dictate¹⁹ how much capitalthey need to hold. Danske Bank, a big Danish lender, was abruptly²⁰ ordered by its supervisor²¹ tochange its calculations last month, lowering its capital ratio. Denmark is outside the euro,but even German politicians joke about the nasty surprises in their banks’ balance-sheets.

　　难道欧洲的负债资产表不应该被清除吗？私募公司积攒了数十亿，想从欧洲银行手中收购了不良资产，现在这些公司一直在渴望这笔交易，等得急不可耐。监管部门担心，银行不会清除或者售出不良贷款，他们会动手脚改变模式，让人们不知道他们需要持有多少资金。丹麦大型借贷银行丹斯克上个月突然接到上级命令，要他们换个算法，降低资产比例。丹麦不属于欧元区，但是，德国政客们也在其银行资产负债表中开玩笑，嘲讽这个恶心的“惊喜”。

　　None of this presages²² a full-scale collapse: European banks have more capital than they didbefore the start of the crisis. But lending is being throttled²³. As far as the periphery²⁴ isconcerned, the ECB’s attempts to kickstart growth with ultra-low interest rates is one of theleast successful central-bank policies of recent times. Loans to non-financial firmscontracted in May by 4.1% in Italy, 5.0% in Portugal and 9.7% in Spain. Some of that is causedby the impact of recession. But it also reflects financial fragmentation. Banks in strongcountries are lending less across borders. Lenders in weak countries pay more to borrow thanbanks in strong ones. This divergence²⁵ ripples²⁶ through to customers: the difference in the costof borrowing between German and Spanish firms rose from a mere²⁷ six basis points in summer 2011to 149 basis points earlier this year.

　　所有的预测，都没表示欧洲银行全军覆没——毕竟他们现有的资产比金融危机刚开始时要多。但是贷款却仍受限制。就欧元区边缘而言，ECB试图开始靠超低利率拉动经济增长，然而，这却是央行进来最不成功的政策之一。今年五月，意大利非金融性公司借出的资金减少了4.1%，葡萄牙减少了5.0%，西班牙减少了9.7%。部分是受经济衰退的影响。但是，这也反应了财政的破裂。经济强国的银行向国外贷款的数目减少了。在经济弱国贷款要给的利率比在经济强国的银行贷款更高。这种分歧也波及到了银行客户——在2011年，如果公司在德国贷款，需要支付的利率和在西班牙贷款相比，只相差6个基本点；到了今年早些时候，上涨到了149个基本点。

　　Channel-hopping

　　摇摆不定

　　As long as Europe’s banks are not strong enough to lend, its economy will struggle to grow.Mr Draghi and his fellow policymakers should concentrate on three cures.

　　只要欧洲银行没能力向外贷款，欧洲的经济就会上升得很艰难。德拉吉及其他ECB决策人应该全力于以下三个解决方法。

　　The first is to unclog the lending channels. There are mechanisms²⁸ for the ECB to try to lowerbank-lending rates in the periphery. But it could also usefully weaken the dependence²⁹ of smalland medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on banks by helping³⁰ prise open the capital markets—by,for instance, buying up securities backed by SME loans. That would mean helping some countriesmore than others, something that makes the ECB uneasy. But this horse has bolted: the centralbank’s policies are already having an uneven³¹ effect across the euro zone. The EuropeanInvestment Bank could also ease credit by taking a “first-loss” position in SME-backedsecurities. There has been a lot of talk about this sort of thing, but too little action.

　　一，清除借贷中的障碍。ECB中存在相关机制，可以试着降低边缘国家的银行贷款利率。但是，这样做同时也会有效减少中小型企业对银行的依赖性，他们有助于打开资本市场，比如，收购中小型企业贷款支撑的证券。如此一来，部分国家得到的帮助会多一些，如果出现这种情况，ECB会十分担忧。但是ECB却像头受惊的小马驹，他们已经出台了会导致欧元区国家享受不同待遇的政策。同时，在中小型企业支撑的证券中，欧洲投资银行也可以有损失时首当其冲，从而放松信贷。不过，大家都是语言的巨人，行动的矮子。

　　The second cure involves lifting the cloud of suspicion over European banks. The ECB willundertake an “asset-quality review” before it takes up the role of euro-zone bankingsupervisor next year. Previous stress tests by national supervisors³² were not tough enough—andconvinced nobody. The asset-quality review is the ECB’s first and best chance to establishits credibility. Banks that fall short must be recapitalised—by raising fresh equity fromprivate investors, by bailing³³ in creditors³⁴ and, in some cases, by bringing in public money.

　　二，消除对欧洲银行的疑虑。ECB会做一个资产质量评估，然后在明年，担当欧元区银行监管的角色。之前，国际监管机构也做个压力测试，不过力度不够，也没说服力。这次的资产质量评估是ECB建立信誉的第一个也是唯一一个机会。落后的银行必须进行资本重组，重组的方法可以是从私人投资者那里筹集新的资产净值，可以是债权人纾困，在某些情况下，还可以引进公款。

　　That raises the familiar spectre of the Spanish and Italian governments worsening their ownfinances by borrowing to prop³⁵ up domestic lenders. That is a reminder³⁶ of the importance of thethird cure: a proper banking union, supervised by the ECB, with a common resolution fund(proposed this week by the European Commission) and a joint³⁷ deposit-guarantee scheme. The eurozone will not work without a banking union. Here Germany is the block: it hints that it mightconsider taking on such mutual³⁸ obligations in the future, but not now. The problem is that nowis when the banks are half-dead. Waiting for zombies to come back to life is a fool’s game.

　　如此一来，人们熟悉的噩梦又出现了——西班牙和意大利政府靠借钱来支持其国内的借贷银行，进一步恶化了其经济形势。这就提醒了人们，第三个解决方法的重要性：在ECB监管下，成立一个适当的银行联盟，并达成一致的重组基金（由欧洲委员会本周提出），建立一个联合存款保险体制。如果没有银行联盟，欧元区肯定解决不了经济危机。现在，德国成了拦路石——德国暗示人们，也许将来会考虑采用类似的相互债务责任制度，但现在不会。现在的问题是银行处于濒死状。等待尸体复活可不是个明智的选择。

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