雙語閱讀｜金融危機十年後，世界銀行業有何改變

THE ELECTION OF Donald Trump as America』s 45th president dismayed most of New York; Mr Trump』s home city had voted overwhelmingly for another local candidate, Hillary Clinton. But Wall Street cheered. Between polling day on November 8th and March 1st, the S&P 500 sub-index of American banks』 share prices soared by 34%; finance was the fastest-rising sector in a fast-rising market. At the time of the election just two of the six biggest banks, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, could boast market capitalisations that exceeded the net book value of their assets. Now all but Bank of America and Citigroup are in that happy position.

唐納德•川普當選第45任美國總統一事讓大半個紐約唉聲嘆氣； 在川普的家鄉，大部分選民都將選票投給了他的對手希拉里•柯林頓。但是，華爾街卻為此歡欣雀躍。在11月8日投票日到3月1日總統宣誓就任日這段期間，標普500的美國銀行股的股價飆升了34％；金融業的增長速度在快速發展的市場版塊中名列前茅。在大選期間，美國六大銀行中，只有摩根大通銀行和富國銀行有資格宣稱自己的市場資本超過賬面凈值。現在，除了美國銀行和花旗銀行之外，其它四大銀行的市場資本也都是如此。

Banks』 shares were already on the up, largely because markets expected the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates after a long pause. It obliged in December and March, with three more rises expected this year. That should enable banks to widen the margin between their borrowing and lending rates from 60-year lows. Mr Trump』s victory added an extra boost by promising to lift America』s economic growth rate. He wants to cut taxes on companies, which would fatten banks』 profits directly as well as benefiting their customers. He has also pledged to loosen bank regulation, the industry』s biggest gripe, declaring on the campaign trail that he would 「do a big number」 on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which overhauled financial regulation after the crisis.

各家美國銀行的股價已在高點，主要是由於市場預期美聯儲會在長期未上調利率之後會有所動作。去年十二月和今年三月，美聯儲兩次上調了利率，預計今年還會上調三次。這使得銀行能擴大六十年來處於歷史低位的借貸利率差。川普贏得美國大選后，承諾要提升美國經濟增長速度，進一步刺激了了利率上調的可能性。他想給企業減稅，這會直接養肥銀行，同時也會讓其客戶受益。川普還承諾說要放鬆銀行監管——這是銀行業最為頭痛的事；在一次競選活動中，他聲稱會對《多德-弗蘭克華爾街改革和消費者保護法案》」動大手術「，而該法案要求在2008年金融危機后徹查金融監管制度。

So have the banks at last put the crisis behind them? This special report will argue that many of them are in much better shape than they were a decade ago, but the gains are not evenly spread and have further to go. That is particularly true in Europe, where the banks』 recovery has been distinctly patchy. The STOXX Europe 600 index of bank share prices is still down by two-thirds from the peak it reached ten years ago this month. European lenders』 returns on equity average just 5.8%.

因此，銀行業最終從金融危機中恢復過來了嗎？本次特別報道系列的觀點是：與十年前相比，很多銀行的情況大大改善，但是恢復速度不一，未來還有很長的路要走。這一點在歐洲尤為明顯，因為歐洲的銀行恢復速度大有不同。歐洲STOXX600銀行業指數顯示，與其十年前最高股價相比，五月的銀行股價只有達2/3。歐洲銀行的股票投資回報率平均僅為5.8％。

America』s banks are significantly stronger. In investment banking, they are beating European rivals hollow. They are no longer having to fork out billions in legal bills for the sins of the past, and they are at last making a better return for their shareholders. Mike Mayo, an independent bank analyst, expects their return on tangible equity soon to exceed their cost of capital (which he, like most banks, puts at 10%) for the first time since the crisis.

美國的銀行增長勢頭要強勁很多。在銀行投資業務方面，美國的銀行能將歐洲競爭對手打得落花流水。它們行不再要為歷史過錯支付巨額司法賠償，至少是在為股東賺取更為豐厚的回報。獨立銀行分析師邁克•梅奧（Mike Mayo）預期美國銀行的有形資產收益率很快就會超過其資本價值（他認為美國銀行的有形資產收益率會和其他大多數銀行一樣，均為10％），這將會是金融危機之後的第一次反超。

But financial crises cast long shadows, and even in America banks are not back in full sun yet. Despite the initial Trump rally, the S&P 500 banks index is still about 30% below the peak it reached in February 2007 (see chart). Debates about revising America』s post-crisis regulation are only just beginning. And the biggest question of all has not gone away: are banks—and taxpayers—now safe enough?

然而，金融危機的影響遠不止於此，甚至連美國的銀行也沒有完全從中走出來。雖然在川普當選后，標普500指數銀行的股價有所上升，卻依然低於其2007年2月的股價峰值（見圖表）。關於是否重新實行后金融危機監管法案的討論才剛剛上演。最大的問題還是沒有消失：銀行和納稅人現在徹底安全了嗎？

Plenty of Americans, including many who voted for Mr Trump, are still suspicious of big banks. The crisis left a good number of them (though few bankers) conspicuously poorer, and resentment easily bubbles up again. Last September Wells Fargo, which had breezed through the crisis, admitted that over the past five years it opened more than 2m ghost deposit and credit-card accounts for customers who had not asked for them. The gain to Wells was tiny, and the fine of $185m was relatively modest. But the scandal cost John Stumpf, the chief executive, and some senior staff their jobs, as well as $180m in forfeited pay and shares. Wells has been fighting a public-relations battle ever since, and mostly losing.

許多美國人，包括投票給川普的選民，依舊對那些大銀行持懷疑態度。金融危機過後，很多人（雖然沒多少銀行家）變得更為貧窮，心裡的怒火很容易就會再次點燃。去年九月，富國銀行承認其在過去的五年間單方面為客戶開了200萬個虛假存款和信用卡賬戶。此前該銀行輕鬆度過了金融危機。為此，富國銀行收益甚微，1.85億美元的罰單也算仁慈。但是，這樁醜聞卻讓富國銀行首席執行官約翰•斯坦普夫（John Stumpf）等高管引咎辭職，共計1.8億美元的股份和薪資遭沒收。此後，富國銀行一直陷在公關大戰之中，而且大多以失敗告終。

This report will take stock of the banking industry, chiefly in America and Europe, a decade after the precipitous fall from grace of banks on both sides of the Atlantic (see article). The origins of the crisis lay in global macroeconomic imbalances as well as in failures of the financial system』s management and supervision: a surfeit of savings in China and other surplus economies was financing an American borrowing and property binge. American and European banks, economies and taxpayers bore the brunt.

本特別報道主要盤點了在金融危機過去十年之後，大西洋兩岸的美歐銀行業是否從股價直線下降后恢復了往日的輝煌。金融危機的發生是由全球宏觀經濟失衡和金融體系監管不利引起的：的高額儲蓄以及其他有盈餘的經濟體正在將資金投到美國債務和房地產熱潮之中。首當其衝的就是美國和歐洲的銀行、經濟體和納稅人。

Banks in other parts of the world, by and large, fared far better. In Australia and Canada, returns on equity stayed in double figures throughout. It helped that Australia has just four big banks and Canada five, which all but rules out domestic takeovers and keeps margins high. As commodity prices have sagged recently, so has profitability in both countries, but last year Australia』s lenders returned 13.7% on equity and Canada』s 14.1%, results that banks elsewhere can only envy.

總體而言，世界其他地方的銀行做得更好。在澳大利亞和加拿大，銀行的股票回報率一直保持在兩位數，使得澳大利亞的四大銀行和加拿大的五大銀行全部拒絕國內收購，保持高利潤率。近來隨著商品價格的下跌，兩國的利潤率也受到影響，不過，去年澳大利亞和加拿大銀行的股票回報率分別為13.7％和14.1％，對讓其他國家的銀行只能眼紅。

Japan』s biggest banks, which had been reckless adventurers in the heady 1980s and 1990s, did not remain wholly unscathed. Mizuho suffered most, writing down about ¥700bn ($6.8bn). The Japanese were able to pick through Western debris for acquisitions to supplement meagre returns at home. Some chose more wisely than others: MUFG』s stake in Morgan Stanley was a bargain, whereas Nomura』s purchase of Lehman Brothers』 European business proved a burden. Chinese lenders were mostly bystanders at the time, remaining focused on their domestic market.

日本的幾大銀行也沒能完全倖免，要知道它們在浮躁的20世紀八九十年代也肆意妄為。在上一次金融危機中，瑞穗銀行損失最為慘重，賬麵價值跌了7000億元（合68億美元）。日本企業通過從西方的」廢墟「中收購撿寶，此彌補國內收效甚微的回報。有一些銀行的做法更為明智：三菱日聯金融集團選擇在摩根士丹利銀行低價入股，然而，野村證券低價收購雷曼兄弟的歐洲業務卻證明是多了一個包袱。的銀行當時大都袖手旁觀，仍然專註於國內市場。

The seven consequences of apocalypse

金融危機的七大影響

Ask bankers what has changed most in their industry in the past decade, and top of their list will be regulation. A light touch has been replaced by close oversight, including 「stress tests」 of banks』 ability to withstand crises, which some see as the biggest change in the banking landscape. Before the crisis, says the chief financial officer of an international bank, his firm (and others like it) carried out internal stress tests, for which it collected a few thousand data points. When his bank』s main supervisor started conducting tests after the crisis, the number of data points leapt to the hundreds of thousands. It is now in the low millions, and still rising. The number of people working directly on 「controls」 at JPMorgan Chase, America』s biggest bank, jumped from 24,000 in 2011 (the year after the Dodd-Frank act, the biggest reform to financial regulation since the 1930s) to 43,000 in 2015. That works out at one employee in six.

如果問銀行家，過去的十年，銀行業變化最大的是什麼，他們回答最多的應該是業內監管力度的加強。從蜻蜓點水式監管變成了到目不轉晴式監管，這其中包括對銀行進行「壓力測試」檢測其抵禦危機的能力，有些人認為這是銀行業發生的最大變化。金融危機發生之前，一國際銀行首席財務官表示，他所在職的銀行（同時也包括與其公司類似的企業）對幾千個測試點進行了內部壓力測試。金融危機之後，該公司主監管員再次進行測試時，數據點已由躍升為幾十萬個。現在，數據點更是高達幾百萬個，未來還會繼續增長。在美國最大的銀行摩根大通銀行，直接負責風控測試的人員已從2011年的2.4萬增至2015年的4.3萬，相當於其僱員總數的1/6。2011年是《多德-弗蘭克法案》擬定之後的第一年，該法案也是二十世紀三十年代以來金融管控體系面臨的最為徹底的改革。

The second big change is far more demanding capital requirements, together with new rules for leverage and liquidity. Bankers and supervisors agree that the crisis exposed banks』 equity cushions as dangerously thin. For too many, leverage was the path first to profit and then to ruin. Revised international rules, known as Basel 3 (still a work in progress), have forced banks to bulk up, adding equity and convertible debt to their balance-sheets. The idea is that a big bank should be able to absorb the worst conceivable blow without taking down other institutions or needing to be rescued. Between 2011 and mid-2016 the world』s 30 「globally systemically important」 banks boosted their common equity by around €1trn ($1.3trn), mostly through retained earnings, says the Bank for International Settlements in Basel.

第二個巨大變化是近乎嚴苛的資本要求，隨之而來的還有調控槓桿率和流動性的新規。銀行從業者和監管人員一致認為，金融危機讓銀行的股本率變得異常脆弱。對大多數人而言，槓桿率首先打開的是利益的閥門，其次才是通往毀滅之路。經過修訂之後的國際規約，即大家熟知的《巴塞爾Ⅲ銀行資金條例》（現在仍在修訂中）強烈要求銀行在其資產負債表中增加股產凈值和可轉化債券，以此擴大自己的資金儲備。這樣做的目的是讓大銀行有能力抵禦可能會發生的最為嚴重的危機，同時避免拉其他企業下水或者需要被施以援手。2011年到2016年中旬，被列為「全球系統性重要的」30家大型銀行的普通股產權增加了近1萬億英鎊（合1.3萬億美元），大都是藉助凈收益實現的。

Third, returns on equity have been lower than before the crisis. In part, that is a natural consequence of a bigger equity base. But the fallout from the crisis has also squeezed returns in another way. Central banks first pushed interest rates to ultra-low levels and then followed up with enormous purchases of government bonds and other assets. This was partly intended to help banks, by making funding cheaper and boosting economies. But low rates and flat yield curves compress interest margins and hence profits.

第三，股本收益率比一直低於金融危機之前。一方面，這是股本基數變大后的自然現象，但是，不能說這種下滑走勢和金融危機帶來的陰霾毫無關聯。中央銀行先將利率下調至超低水平，然後大肆購買政府債券等資產。這樣做一方面是想幫助銀行，為其提供更為廉價的融資，然而，低利率和統一價格同時也降低了息差和銀行的利潤。

Balance-sheets have been stuffed with cash, deposited at central banks and earning next to nothing. According to Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm, the share of cash in American banks』 balance-sheets jumped from 3% before the crisis to a peak of 20% in 2014. As the world economy is at last reviving after several false starts, earnings may pick up in Europe as well as in America.

資產負債表中滿是現金，儲在中央銀行，毫無賺頭可言。據奧緯諮詢公司的數據，美國銀行資產負債表中的現金份額由金融危機前的3％飆升至2014年的20％峰值。幾次復甦夭折之後，世界經濟最終實現了復甦，歐洲和美國的利潤或許也會增加。

Sweat your assets

壓縮資產

Fourth, sluggish revenues, combined with the competing demands of supervisors and shareholders, have forced banks to screw down their costs and to think much harder about how best to use scarce resources. 「If I』m going to get a good return on a high amount of capital, I』d better focus on what I』m good at,」 says Jim Cowles, Citigroup』s boss in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Citi, which under Sandy Weill in the late 1990s had become a sprawling financial supermarket, selling everything from investment-banking services to insurance, has retreated to become chiefly a corporate and investment bank, much as it had been in the 1970s and 1980s. Its bosses emphasise its 「network」, a presence in nearly 100 countries that multinationals』 treasurers can count on. It once also had retail banks in 50 countries, many of them second-string. That total is now down to 19.

第四，收入增長乏力以及監管人員和股東的要求嚴苛，這些都迫使銀行降低成本，更加認真的思考如何在資源匱乏的情況下最大限度地物盡其用。負責花旗集團在歐洲、中東和亞洲業務的首席運營官吉姆•考爾斯（Jim Cowles）說道：「如果讓我藉助巨額資本獲取豐厚的回報，我會把著眼點放在我擅長的領現金帳域。」20世紀九十年代末期，在桑迪•威爾（Sandy Weill）領導下的花旗銀行已然是個超級金融市場，廣泛涉足各個領域，從投行業務到保險服務，無所不有。現在，花旗銀行彷彿回到了二十世紀七八十年代，又變成了企業銀行和投資銀行。花旗銀行的高管們強調的是其「業務網」，遍布在近100個國家，服務於各大跨國公司的資金往來。花旗銀行曾在50個國家境內開設了零售銀行業務，其中大多為替補狀態，且目前減少至19個國家。

Such retreat from marginal businesses has also meant fewer jobs and lower bonuses, even if bankers』 pay is still the envy of most. That has brought about a fifth change: banks have become less attractive employers for high-powered graduates. 「The brightest people no longer want to go to banks but to Citadel [a hedge-fund firm],」 laments a senior banker. Some millennials, he adds, are drawn to technology companies instead. Others 「don』t want to deal with business at all」. That is because of a sixth change: the financial sector』s reputation was trashed by the crisis. One scandal followed another as the story of the go-go years unfolded: providing mortgages to people who could not afford them; mis-selling securities built upon such loans; selling expensive and often useless payment-protection insurance; fixing Libor, a key interest rate; rigging the foreign-exchange market; and much more.

雖然銀行家的薪資依舊讓大多數人羨慕，但是，這種退出邊緣業務的做法同時也意味著就業崗位減少、獎金下滑。這就導致了第五個變化：在能力非凡的畢業生眼中，銀行的吸引力開始下降。有位銀行高管感嘆說：「前景無限的人不再想來銀行工作，轉而選擇城堡（Citadel）基金這種對沖基金公司。」他還表示，有些千禧一代更願意去技術公司工作。剩下的人「連和銀行業務打交道的念頭也沒有。」這又是第六個改變造成的：上次危機讓金融界的聲譽一落千丈。業內醜聞不斷，「沸騰歲月」的故事接二連三地被曝出：給那些無力償還貸款的人提供按揭貸款；利用貸款惡意出售證券；讓客戶購買昂貴卻大都無價值的支付保護險；給倫敦同業拆放利率這種重要的利率亂定標準；操縱外匯市場等等。

Seventh and last, financial technology is becoming ever more important. That may be better news for banks than it sounds, despite the creakiness of some of their computer systems. Plenty of financial startups are trying to muscle in on their business, but in a highly regulated industry heavyweight incumbents are harder to usurp than booksellers or taxi drivers. As a result, there is a good chance of banks and technology companies forming mutually beneficial partnerships to improve services to their customers rather than fighting each other.

最後一點，也就是第七點，金融科技的重要性日益顯現。雖然銀行的部分計算機系統朝不保夕，但對銀行來說，可能比看起來要樂觀一些。很多剛起步的金融公司正努力擴展業務，但是鑒於業內強有力的監管力度，位高權重的老牌兒企業很難像書商和計程車司機一樣輕鬆佔領市場。因此，銀行和科技公司就可以成為合作夥伴，拋開競爭，互利共贏，更好地服務客戶。

翻吧