China has moved to rein in an explosion of short-term high-yielding products offered by banks, which regulators see as a potentially dangerous side-effect of a lending spree by banks since the global financial crisis.
In rules published on Wednesday, the China Banking Regulatory Commission demanded that banks do more to manage and disclose risks involved in their so-called “wealth management products”, which function like certificates of deposit with a duration of just a few weeks.
Having issued a torrent of credit over the past three years, Chinese banks are now working to attract enough funding to keep their loan-to-deposit ratio below the 75 per cent regulatory threshold.