Reforming the four major state-owned commercial banks has become the core issue of China's financial reform and opening up, and the primary issue of the recent reform of the four major banks is to digest the historical burden. At the same time, according to the requirements of world-class banks, we will build all kinds of banking systems in an all-round way.
First, it is time to speed up the reform of state-owned commercial banks.
As the backbone of China's banking system, the four state-owned commercial banks have always been in a dominant position in the whole banking field and played an important role in the development of the national economy.
After 1994, the four major state-owned banks began a difficult transition from professional banks to commercial banks. Great changes have taken place in the four major state-owned banks through reform. Compared with ten years ago, the management ability, management level and service quality of banks have been greatly improved, the rate of non-performing assets of banks has been rapidly reduced, and the overall quality of banks has been greatly improved.
However, the current problems cannot be ignored. The outstanding performance is that the reform of bank property right system has not made substantial progress, and the defects of the system determine that the corporate governance structure of banks cannot be fundamentally improved. The operational mechanism, especially the risk internal control mechanism, needs to be further improved. A large number of accumulated non-performing assets have not been effectively disposed of, and the potential risks are still great. Many foreign lessons have proved that banking crisis is usually the core factor of financial crisis. On the one hand, banking crisis is often transmitted quickly through the credit chain, causing financial crisis; On the other hand, even if the financial crisis is not directly triggered by banks, banking crises usually follow one after another, bringing or deepening the crisis in the financial field.
As mentioned above, the four state-owned commercial banks play an important role in China's banking system, and their operating conditions directly affect the security of China's financial system. To ensure the financial security of China, we must first solve the problems existing in state-owned commercial banks. According to China's commitment to the WTO, by 2006, China will completely cancel the geographical restrictions on foreign banks, cancel all existing non-prudent measures to restrict the ownership, operation and establishment of foreign banks (including setting up branches and issuing licenses), and allow them to enjoy the same treatment as Chinese banks. This means that in just over two years, foreign banks will compete with Chinese banks without any obstacles. If the reform is not accelerated, banks in China may lose their competitiveness further.
In short, in the case that the four major banks have huge non-performing assets, capital adequacy ratio and other bank safety indicators are very fragile, and foreign banks are ready to enter in a big way, once there is any trouble after 2005, or because of other unpredictable factors, it is possible that a bank will transfer deposits in a large area, triggering a run on one or even several banks, and eventually causing financial panic. Judging from the existing state-owned commercial banks, this is by no means an alarmist. As long as we can't come up with a transparent and effective solution to the outside world in the past three years, we have no reason to sit back and relax, be blindly optimistic, and never bet on the interests of the country and the nation. Therefore, we should learn from the banking crisis in other countries and accelerate the reform of China's four major banks? Improving its international competitiveness is of great significance for preventing and resolving the possible financial crisis in the future. Therefore, the reform of the four state-owned commercial banks has become the core issue of China's financial reform and opening up.
The urgent task of the reform of the four major banks is to solve the existing huge financial risks as soon as possible and turn the four major banks into financial enterprises that can compete with the world-class banks through various reform measures. However, the first problem cannot be solved. No matter how good the system and the manager are after the reform, they can only restrain the generation of new non-performing loans, and still cannot achieve the goal of high asset quality after the reform in a short time. In this sense, the core and primary problem of the recent four major bank reforms is to digest the historical burden.
Second, the way to solve the historical burden.
(1) First of all, we should seriously follow the essence of the prudential supervision requirements of the Basel Accord, instead of simply applying the relevant formulas of the Basel Accord, and have a correct and thorough calculation of the asset losses of the four major banks, which is the most basic prerequisite for seeking to solve the historical burden. The calculation of bank assets loss should include the summary calculation of credit loss and non-credit loss, domestic loss and overseas loss, on-balance-sheet loss and off-balance-sheet loss, and the provision gap of loss reserve. Virtual book capital can no longer be simply counted as capital, but a large number of unwritten-off non-performing loans and expected losses of non-credit assets must be considered. When calculating the core capital adequacy ratio and capital adequacy ratio, if the loss of credit and non-credit assets is greater than the balance set aside in the loss reserve, it shall be deducted from the book capital. Of course, the assets equivalent to the reserve gap are deducted from the risky assets accordingly. According to this requirement, the current bank capital adequacy ratio and core capital adequacy ratio are definitely worse than the published situation, but this truly reflects the international supervision experience required by the Basel Accord and the requirements of world-class banks for sound operation.
(2) It is necessary to clarify the general idea of resolving the risks of the four major banks. With the efforts of the regulatory authorities in recent years, the risk base and development trend of the four major banks have been basically clear, and the time limit for overseas banks to enter the China market on a large scale is numbered. We can neither underestimate the risks nor lose confidence.
The general idea should be: strategizing and making overall arrangements; Transparent information and stable confidence; Distinguish between situations and classify them; Multi-party financing, joint efforts to solve.
Planning and overall arrangement: the risk resolution of the four major banks should be considered as a whole, and the last one should not be decided without planning. To solve the risks of the four major banks, it is necessary to consider as a whole that there are more than 100 other joint-stock banks, more than 30,000 rural credit cooperatives, securities companies and insurance companies that have the government burden of risk resolution. In the listing of large banks, it is necessary to consider the national financial industry as a whole, and consider that the government should still firmly control the backbone commercial banks that are absolutely or relatively controlled, which can influence and influence the overall financial situation. This is the need to stabilize China's financial system in the future.
Transparent information and stable confidence: As public opinion at home and abroad has been full of unfavorable remarks against the four major banks, our solution should be sooner rather than later, and the later, the more likely it is that all parties at home and abroad will doubt the non-performing loan base of the four major banks. The more transparent the solution, the better. The more opaque it is, the easier it will be for residents to distrust banks under the guidance of domestic and foreign media opinion in a few years. This seems to be the same as dealing with the SARS disaster. The opaque information in the early stage often leads to the passive situation in the later stage.
Differentiate the situation and deal with it in different categories: the four major banks generally have serious non-performing assets, but some of them are not as bad as some people imagine and guess. Therefore, the solution should be formulated by one bank and one bank separately, instead of tying them together to calculate the general ledger, and we can't just put forward static principled slogans and general plans.
Multi-party financing and joint efforts to solve the problem: someone must pay the bill to resolve the risk. Because the risk levels of the four major banks are different, they should make use of all possible market conditions to raise funds from different channels to reduce the financial burden of the government as much as possible.
In short, the reform of the four major banks will be listed as soon as it can be listed, split if it needs to be split, and inject capital if it needs to be injected. Through careful calculation of the existing data, the four major banks put forward specific and overall operation plans, and the risk of non-performing loans will be basically resolved by the end of 2005.
(3) Considering that some banks are going to be listed after reorganization, we should pay close attention to the preparation of financial statements and full disclosure of information by using international accounting standards. International accounting standards have been recognized and accepted by more and more exchanges in the world. Adopting international accounting standards is an important condition for enterprises to raise funds in the global capital market. Banks preparing to go public should hire internationally renowned accounting firms in advance to comprehensively adjust and evaluate their financial data in accordance with international accounting standards.
Third, build a comprehensive banking system according to the requirements of world-class banks.
There are many contents in the comprehensive reform of banks. Generally speaking, there are three levels of content, one is corporate governance structure, the other is organizational management, and the third is business operation. For China's current banks, compared with the world-class banks, there are obvious gaps in the above three aspects, which need to be further improved and rebuilt. Below, only the key points are briefly described.
(A) efforts to establish an effective corporate governance institutions, the goal is to clarify the relationship between investors and managers, and design an effective incentive mechanism for managers.
It is necessary to ensure that the view of "official standard" of managers is completely broken from the system. At present, conditions are basically mature. On the basis of considering China's current national conditions, except for the top leaders or some deputy directors of the four major banks, the government should explicitly cancel the administrative level of bank branch presidents at all levels and change them to appointment system. Let the managers at different levels make it clear that they are entrepreneurs, bankers, not officials, and their first goal is to make money for investors, make money and then make money. Moreover, such a mechanism must be formed, and managers will suffer huge financial losses because of dereliction of duty. If managers are to be held accountable, banks will not make money and managers will step down.
In addition to improving the corporate governance structure in accordance with the company law when it is reorganized into a joint-stock company, as long as the corporate unit in the form of a wholly-owned company funded by the government is still retained, it is necessary to establish an organization of the board of directors or the board of supervisors to exercise the owner's power and exercise the ultimate substantive control over the bank. Including the formulation of bank development strategies; To appoint and dismiss senior bank managers, assess their business performance, determine their salaries, guide and supervise them to ensure the realization of the owners' business objectives; Guide and supervise managers to establish an effective internal control system, improve the internal management environment and effectively control risks; To examine and approve major business plans and decisions of banks; Review the reports of operators, guide and inspect the work of internal audit and audit departments, etc. When selecting members of the board of directors or the board of supervisors, in addition to representatives of departments representing national interests, we should also consider attracting outstanding professionals with professional knowledge, practical management experience, good professional ethics and market recognition. In order to ensure that the board of directors or the board of supervisors are not controlled by insiders and can really play an effective role, first, managers are not allowed to serve as members of the board of directors or the board of supervisors; Second, at least half of the members of the board of directors or the board of supervisors are excellent external professionals who are hired with high salaries; Third, the board of directors or the board of supervisors have the right to ask the State Council to exempt or recommend the first manager of the bank; Fourth, the board of directors or the board of supervisors have the obligation to directly report the major business matters of the wholly state-owned banks to the State Council.
(B) efforts to establish an effective organization and management system
(1) According to the principle of market and efficiency, on the basis of the original streamlined organization, further adjust and streamline the internal organization.
(2) Solve the problem of redundant stock withdrawal by "buyout".
(3) Establish a perfect performance appraisal system and corresponding incentive mechanism for personnel at all levels.
(4) Establish a market-oriented human resource management system and training mechanism.
(3) According to the standards of world-class banks, we will comprehensively improve the standardized business operation processes such as credit, accounting, product development, cost finance and internal audit. Including combining the development strategy determined by the bank under the new situation after China's entry into WTO, re-integrating the original business process and organizational structure, and on this basis, establishing a comprehensive and departmental internal cost-profit accounting system and corresponding performance appraisal system; Establish a scientific internal risk control management system and mechanism, including not only credit risk, but also interest rate risk and operational risk that have not been noticed in the past. In accordance with international accounting standards, we will comprehensively promote the construction of prudent accounting principles and truly improve the bank's capital adequacy ratio and core capital adequacy ratio. On this basis, in accordance with the requirements of the Basel Committee, timely and correctly disclose relevant information to enhance the transparency of banks.
At the beginning of 2003, a significant audit system reform was quietly carried out in the building of China Development Bank. The direct result of this reform is to take the lead in realizing the vertical management of the audit supervision system in the domestic banking industry. After the reform, audit supervision has really become a "deminer" of loan risk and a mirror for improvement-
In order to accelerate the pace towards the goal of developing financial institutions with world-class market performance in an all-round way, adapt to the needs of the third-line operating system of "business promotion, risk control and audit supervision" and further strengthen the audit supervision of development banks, in early 2003, CDB used the international modern banking management model for reference to further promote the reform and innovation of the audit system, and all the audit supervision rights were returned to the head office, which became an important content for CDB to strengthen risk control.
The audit management system was adjusted this time. First, cancel the audit department of the branch, so that the branch can concentrate on project development, credit management, risk prevention and internal control. Second, strengthen the strength of the audit team, increasing the original nine audit teams to 12, and each audit team is responsible for the audit supervision of branches within its jurisdiction. The independent accounting of the financial expenses of the audit team laid the foundation for strengthening the independence of audit supervision in the organizational system. Third, the audit supervision mechanism has been further rationalized, and the supervisory responsibilities for all departments of the head office and branches have been clarified and implemented; Established the important principle of guiding CDB audit work with international advanced internal audit theory, and carried out internal audit work from the perspective of risk. ...
In fact, the reform and innovation of the audit system of China Development Bank began several years ago. In order to further improve the bank's awareness of compliance operation and management level, improve internal control, and effectively prevent and resolve financial risks, CDB has implemented the system of transaction-by-transaction audit and quarterly analysis report since 2002, that is, on the basis of self-discipline and self-control of various businesses of the bank and management supervision of second-line departments, with the use of all CDB funds as the monitoring object, monthly on-site and off-site audits are adopted to promote
The development of one-by-one audit has effectively improved the importance attached by CDB Head Office and branches to the management of financial expenses and credit funds business, and further strengthened the management, control and supervision of credit business, fund business and financial expenses; It promotes the compliance of various operations and greatly improves the transparency and scientificity of business operations and expenses; Effectively promoted the strengthening of the basic work of the whole bank and the compliance of accounting management level. It is understood that at present, the rectification rate of problems found by one audit is close to100%; The audit results of the head office's financial expenses have been error-free for four consecutive months, and some branches have achieved zero error rate.
In order to meet the needs of CDB's reform and development and discover risks in time, CDB attaches great importance to carrying out targeted special audits. In their work, auditors consciously combined the credit management of branches to reveal the main hidden risks of project loans and the problems existing in project evaluation and credit management, which greatly promoted the head office's awareness and work of strengthening credit management and actively resolving risks, and also organically combined the role of audit supervision and service.
In order to ensure the authenticity and reliability of CDB's operating performance, the Bank has also organized a comprehensive audit of the bank's 200/KLOC-0 year-end asset quality classification since last year, and objectively evaluated the authenticity of the bank's 200/KLOC-0 year-end asset quality classification results, the adequacy of classification basis and the effectiveness of internal control. This work has been carried out quarterly this year. At the same time, in the inspection and evaluation of principal and interest recovery, auditors also tried to predict risks through the analysis of borrowers' financial data, so as to further determine the scope and objectives that need to be highly concerned, which played a supervisory and guarantee role in CDB's principal and interest recovery.
The reporter learned in the interview that the development bank has been insisting on post-evaluation of project loans after two years of lending. Its purpose is to reveal the problems and risks existing in project evaluation, decision-making and credit management, sum up the experience and lessons of credit business in stages, and realize information feedback and independent supervision of evaluation, credit rating and credit management. Practice has also proved that this is a good means of internal control, which can greatly improve the work quality of various departments and branches. Since the beginning of this year, through unremitting efforts, CDB has initially developed and completed the post-loan evaluation information system of China Development Bank based on independent business innovation, and put it into trial operation in the whole bank. Undoubtedly, under the higher level and technical conditions, the system specification of post-evaluation business system has been completed, and the requirement of "making project loan management and supervision form a closed loop" has finally been realized, thus comprehensively improving the inspection means and supervision and evaluation mechanism of loan execution effect, and taking an important step towards the networking, systematization and standardization of project loan post-evaluation. It is understood that at present, according to the post-loan evaluation plan of the Bank in 2003, 30 branches of the Bank and 9 business departments of the Head Office have respectively completed the post-loan evaluation of the 2 18 project which ended in 2000, and formed the basic evaluation results. According to Comrade CDB, on this basis, the bank will further organize internal and external post-evaluation members to independently evaluate and rate the success of the above-mentioned project loans, and form a regular "review" and supervision evaluation of the loan implementation effect.
In fact, in the development bank, the reform and improvement of the audit system are closely linked with innovation everywhere. For example, in order to improve the effectiveness of off-site supervision, the Bank developed off-site supervision and risk early warning systems, built off-site supervision platforms for accounting, credit management and financial expense management, and designed operational risk management indicators. In 2002, the system was highly appraised as "leading in China" by the People's Bank of China, and won the "Second Prize of Bank Science and Technology Development". Through the monthly off-site monitoring of the Bank's capital business, CDB's current capital position level has been controlled at a reasonable level, which has contributed to improving CDB's capital efficiency. Through the quarterly audit and evaluation of credit business, especially the new loans of the whole bank, it has played a positive role in preventing the risks of new loans.
Some people compare the audit work to the "master gate" of bank internal control mechanism supervision, because it not only performs the function of internal control construction itself, but also is an inspection and supervision center independent of various business departments in banking institutions. It is through the innovation of audit system that China Development Bank has achieved the perfection of internal control, effectively prevented financial risks and played a fundamental role in ensuring and promoting the development of financial institutions with world-class market performance.