Total Chinese bank assets approaching US$30 trillion, says new report

HONG KONG – A new report from SNL Financial says that, industry-wide, China’s bank assets grew 13.84% to 172.3 trillion Chinese yuan (US$28.55 trillion) at the end of 2014 from 151.35 trillion yuan (US$25 trillion) a year earlier. The figure rose to 178.8 trillion yuan (US$28.84 trillion) at the end of first quarter of 2015.

China’s largest bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., held 20.61 trillion Chinese yuan (US$3.32 trillion) in assets at the end of 2014. China Construction Bank Corp. was second, with 16.74 trillion yuan (US$2.70 trillion) in assets.
The banking industry’s weighted-average Tier 1 capital ratio rose 112 basis points year-on-year to 10.97% at the end of 2014, though that is still lower than most Asia-Pacific nations, such as Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. China, on the other hand, has a higher credit-to-GDP ratio than these four countries.
The weighted-average nonperforming loan ratio climbed to 1.22% at the end of 2014 from 0.95% at the end of 2013 and 0.92% at the end of 2012. Growing NPLs are a concern for the Chinese economy, says SNL Financial.
Credit default swaps on five-year sovereign bonds dropped to 90.62 basis points as of April 27, 2015, down from the mid-2013 peak of 145.91 basis points. www.snl.com (ATI).