中國接近於推出信用違約互換市場
As China suffers a rise in company defaults and an increase in corporate downgrades, the need for a credit default swap market in the country has become more pressing. And now it looks likely the People’s Bank of China will give the hedging scheme the go-ahead in coming months.
中國的企業違約和企業評級下調增多之際，它對信用違約互換(CDS)市場的需要已變得愈發迫切。現在看起來，中國央行似乎將於近月放行這種對衝機制。
This is the second time interested parties have tried to establish the market, which would allow participants to buy and sell credit insurance that pays out if a Chinese company fails to make payments on its debts. The fact that it is now likely to succeed is a sign of how much has changed in China.
這是對此感興趣的各方第二次試圖建立這一市場。該市場將讓參與者能夠買賣一種信用保險，如果一家中國企業發生債務違約，這種信用保險會進行賠付。該市場如今有較大可能成功建立，這一事實顯示出中國已發生了多大的變化。
In 2010, the little known National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors first attempted to introduce the product, which allows banks and other investors to hedge the risk of default. But the market never took off for a variety of reasons.
2010年，少有人知的中國銀行間市場交易商協會(National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investor)首次試圖引入信用違約互換。該產品使得銀行及其他投資者能夠對衝違約風險。然而，出於種種原因，該市場始終沒有建立起來。
For one thing, in 2010 there were almost no defaults. Most borrowers and issuers in the capital market were state-owned, and had government backing. Meanwhile, almost all potential participants saw the market in the same light — as an easy and riskless way to collect premium income by selling such insurance. “At the time, everyone wanted to sell,” says the head of markets in China for one large international bank. “It would have been very one-sided.”
一個原因是，2010年那時候幾乎不存在違約。資本市場多數借款方和發行方都是國有企業，有政府撐腰。同時，幾乎所有潛在參與者都認爲，該市場是通過銷售此類保險輕而易舉又毫無風險地獲得保費收入的途徑。一家大型跨國銀行在華的市場部門主管表示：“當時，所有人想的都是賣出。那樣的話將是一個高度一邊倒的市場。”
Today, by contrast, the number of defaults is rising. Being state-owned no longer means that the government stands behind every borrower. As of mid-August, 41 companies defaulted on Rmb25.4bn worth of bonds since the beginning of the year. In addition, many more companies are being downgraded. Indeed, there were more than 1,000 ratings downgrades in the past two months alone according to a report from Credit Suisse, citing Wind Information. That makes the need for the market more obvious and suggests it will not be as one-sided as in the past.
相比之下，如今違約的數目在攀升。國有的身份不再意味着政府會爲每個借款方撐腰。今年年初至8月中旬，已有41家企業的價值254億元人民幣的債券違約。此外，更多的企業正被下調評級。事實上，瑞士信貸(Credit Suisse)一份援引萬得資訊(Wind Information)數據的報告稱，僅過去兩個月就發生了逾1000起評級下調。這一局面使得信用違約互換市場的必要性更加明顯，也意味着該市場將不會像過去那樣一邊倒。
Also at that time, credit rating was in its infancy and there was little trading in the secondary market. Even in the US, there is concern with the accuracy of pricing of many names in the corporate debt market. In China, it was almost impossible to price or mark to market a security or a loan with any accuracy back then.
同樣是在那時，信用評級還處於起步階段，二級市場交易清淡。即使在美國，人們也在擔心對公司債市場上的許多產品定價是否準確。在那時候的中國，幾乎不可能準確地爲證券或貸款定價或按市值計價。
Moreover, six years ago, regulators wished to limit participation in the market to banks. “But the whole point was for banks to eliminate the risk of their exposure, not to pass it around among themselves, so that stance made no sense,” says the executive in charge of risk management at a Shanghai-based fintech company, who was a participant in those early discussions.
此外，6年前，監管機構希望僅限銀行參與這一市場。“但這一市場的全部意義就是讓銀行削減其敞口的風險，而不是相互轉嫁風險，因此這一立場是毫無道理的，”一名曾參與早先的那些討論、目前在上海一家金融科技公司負責風險管理的高管表示。
However, not all the details have been hammered out and issues remain.
然而，並非所有細節都已敲定，問題依然存在。
In the US, for example, there has always been a debate about the problem of perverse incentives, when buyers of protection can make money from the demise of a company. Hedge funds and even banks have been suspected of having small and transparent long exposures to a given credit but massive short exposures by quietly purchasing credit insurance. As the cost of insurance increases, it then causes both the price of the debt and the stock to go down, triggering a death spiral.
比如，在美國，考慮到信用保險的購買者可以從相應企業的倒閉中牟利，一直都存在關於不當激勵問題的辯論。人們一直懷疑，對衝基金乃至銀行一方面公開小額買入一隻信用債，另一方面又通過悄悄買入信用保險來大規模做空這隻信用債。隨着保險成本上升，會導致債務價格和股價雙雙下滑，觸發致命的惡性循環。
Trading will take place in Shanghai and likely involve the Shanghai clearing house. But it also is not yet clear whether it will serve as a central clearing house that will stand in-between both sides, and be the counterparty of each, given the fact that the big state-owned banks, who are likely to be big players, have higher credit ratings.
信用違約互換的交易地點將在上海，上海清算所(Shanghai Clearing House)很可能會參與進來。但是，考慮到可能成爲重要市場參與者的大型國有銀行擁有較高的信用評級，目前還不清楚上海清算所將在其中扮演何種角色——是作爲居間的中央清算機構，還是作爲每一方的交易對手。
The coal-dependent province of Shanxi is one example of those keen to benefit from a CDS scheme. Shanxi’s provincial government said earlier this month it was looking into CDSs as a way of helping its troubled coal companies. The provincial government is proposing setting up a financial services company (based on the model of China Bond Insurance Company) aimed at improving the financing of Shanxi’s companies — mainly through CDS trading.
經濟依賴煤炭的省份山西省是熱切希望從信用違約互換機制中受惠的例子。山西省政府本月早些時候表示，正在研究如何能利用信用違約互換幫助本省陷入困境的煤炭企業。它還提出設立一家金融服務公司（參照中債信用增進公司(CBICL)的模式），以求改善山西企業的融資狀況——主要是通過信用違約互換交易。
Shanxi is going through a crisis of bad debt, with a state-owned enterprise defaulting on a bond in April.
山西正在經歷壞賬危機，該省一家國有企業今年4月發生債券違約。
