Chinese regulators have expanded a pilot plan allowingbanks to package loans into tradable securities to include foreign banks, sources said.
Chinese policymakers see securitization as a tool to shift risk away from the banking system to reduce the chances of a financial crisis as economic growth slows and bad loans rise.
Securitization would also help satisfy voracious investor demand for alternatives to the chronically weak stock market and frothy property sector.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told a cabinet meeting in late August that China would aggressively expand the securitization of credit assets.
The central bank launched a pilot program in 2005 to allow banks to package loans into bond-like securities known as collateralized loan obligations (CLO).
Authorities have moved slowly on the pilot program though partly in the knowledge that the collapse of collateralized debt, backed by U.S. mortgages, triggered the global financial crisis.
The CLO products available in China make up a tiny fraction of the overall loans market and the involvement of foreign banks will not change that ratio since they hold less than 2 percent of bank assets.
The pilot expansion will be limited to small-scale deals, two sources with direct knowledge of the plan said. Recent deals by domestic banks have ranged from 1-to-10 billion yuan ($164 million to $1.64 billion).
About 90 billion yuan ($14.8 billion) of CLO products have been issued in China's interbank market since 2005, according to Reuters calculations based on central bank statements.
That is a tiny fraction of the 70 trillion yuan in local currency loans outstanding at the end of September.
Securitization deals were halted during the financial crisis. The pilot resumed in 2011.
Under the expansion, regulators have asked foreign banks to submit preliminary plans for securitization, the sources said. Once they have received feedback on the preliminary plans, the banks can formally apply for permission to execute the deals.
Source: Reuters
