According to the commitment made by the China government when it joined the WTO, in the past year, China lifted the geographical and customer restrictions on RMB business and provided national treatment to foreign banks, thus realizing the full opening of the banking industry. How to form a healthy and competitive banking industry in China, and how to deal with the fierce competition of foreign banks more effectively, is one of the difficult problems that China's commercial banks need to solve urgently.
Keywords: bank; International trade; competitiveness
First, the status of China's foreign trade and the role of banks
China's accession to the WTO has created a good environment for the development of foreign trade. With the adjustment of global economic structure and the opportunity of international industrial transfer, the growth rate of China's foreign trade has increased rapidly in recent years, and the contribution of trade to GDP is also increasing.
Despite the solemn commitment made by China government, the road to success still has to go through many business risks, legal obstacles and cultural challenges. In fact, the banking industry in China is not just a single market, but a combination of many banks of different types, sizes and geographical locations. Our many years' experience in China tells us that although China already has the rudiment of modern banking, foreign investors still need to follow four principles if they want to overcome the danger and seize the opportunity.
Second, banks in China need to be improved in the field of international trade.
Although China's banking industry is still in the process of continuous improvement, in the field of international trade, the bank still has shortcomings, mainly in the following three aspects:
1, the management system is backward and the management method is outdated. China's banking management system is not perfect. Since 1997, China's financial industry has implemented a strict system of "separate operation and separate supervision". At the same time, the risk of the banking system is reduced and the business scope is greatly limited. Reducing the profit model makes the risk more concentrated, which is not conducive to the operation and management of banks. In addition, banks in China do not have advanced flexibility in management methods. Due to the lack of the advantage of independent operation, Chinese banks cannot adjust their strategies in time according to market changes. Moreover, due to the insufficient withdrawal quota in provision for doubtful debts and the lack of autonomy in writing off bad debts, the ability of Chinese banks to avoid risks in international trade is extremely lacking.
2. The trade financing object is unreasonable and the bank's credit level is low. In recent years, the number of new loans has been increasing, but banks mainly provide financing for large commercial enterprises. For some small and medium-sized enterprises, due to the shortage of collateral or the difficulty of credit verification, banks rarely provide large loans, which makes some small and medium-sized enterprises unable to meet the needs of trade development. However, in the case of large trade quotas, the supply of medium and long-term credit and equity capital is still slightly insufficient. A large amount of funds from commercial banks have entered trade activities and become the lubricant of trade credit, but now the trade credit of banks is still insufficient to maintain the high growth rate of trade. In China, we should fully tap the market potential and focus on developing new businesses such as factoring.
3. The innovation of banks is very small. To broaden the business scope of Chinese banks, we must actively encourage innovation in the banking industry. In the development of China's banking industry, there are several reasons that hinder the innovation of financial business. First, the gap between China and the world in financial reform ideas. Our country takes hedging as the main purpose and adopts the management mode of separate operation, which is not conducive to the innovation of banks in the trade field. Second, the monopoly position of state-owned commercial banks has become an obstacle for other banks to carry out business innovation. Third, financial innovation is achieved through financial instruments. Although China attaches importance to the popularization and application of financial electronization at present, the problem of safe storage of customer data in this process still needs to be solved. In addition, the lack of overseas outlets has also become a major factor restricting innovation. International settlement is often handled through the agency of the head office, which has many links and slow speed, which makes the funds in transit for a long time and increases the exchange rate risk and transaction cost.
Third, the strategy to improve the international trade competitiveness of Chinese banks.
With China's entry into WTO and the gradual opening of the financial industry, a large number of foreign banks are pouring in, which is both an opportunity and a challenge for Chinese banks. Therefore, Chinese banks must adopt appropriate strategies to improve their competitiveness in international trade.
1. Strengthen the internal mechanism transformation of state-owned commercial banks.
(1) Accelerate the pace of property rights reform of state-owned commercial banks. The successive listing of state-owned commercial banks shows that the country is determined to push state-owned commercial banks to the international market, let the market guide the restructuring of banks, and finally realize independent operation and self-financing. Raising funds through listing enables banks to have strong capital strength and enhanced risk prevention ability, and the introduction of management experience also promotes the reform process. The restructured bank has sufficient capital and first-class management team, which can provide strong support for international trade.
(2) Accelerate the process of institutional reform of state-owned commercial banks. State-owned commercial banks should change the previous practice of setting up branches according to administrative divisions and levels, and decide on the establishment and merger of institutions according to the needs of economic regions and business development in line with the principle of streamlining. Branches with small business volume and large losses should be flexibly adjusted according to business needs.
(3) Strengthen the development and cultivation of compound talents. Talents play an important role in international competition. At present, China is extremely short of professionals who are familiar with international trade and good at banking. Therefore, while maintaining the advantages of existing talents and preventing brain drain, we should pay more attention to the development and training of existing compound talents, so as to continuously improve their professional quality and adapt to the international trade business in the banking field under the new situation.
2. Strengthen the risk monitoring of the banking industry. Facts have proved that strengthening the monitoring, analysis and risk early warning of new situations and problems in economic and financial operation is a necessary measure to ensure the safety of assets. Especially when developing loans to small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises in China, based on the uncertainty of interest rate changes, it is necessary to do a good job in security prevention, establish a bank risk assessment system, improve the effectiveness of internal control, and adhere to risk-based prudential supervision.
3. Innovative business areas. Accelerate the pace of international business innovation and give full play to the role of banks as financial institutions. First, open the business market. First, expand the service scope of banks in the domestic market. Second, explore and develop foreign markets; Third, strive for the financial business of foreign-funded enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises, and explore the domestic and foreign foreign customer business markets. The second is the innovation of business varieties. While steadily increasing the volume of international trade settlement, according to the changes in trade forms and the needs of customers, we will introduce new business varieties such as bank insurance and factoring, and use the advantages of resources to develop the market sales of products and improve their popularity.
Four, some suggestions to promote the development of the competitiveness of commercial banks
(1) Give full play to the role of the government and take active and effective measures to provide a good environment for the cooperation between commercial banks and enterprises.
First of all, we must effectively eliminate discrimination against commercial banks and enterprises. The government should give some support to small and medium-sized commercial banks that provide financing support for enterprises in terms of taxes and financial subsidies, and appropriately relax the credit threshold for small and medium-sized enterprises to ensure that they can successfully obtain the funds needed for production. Secondly, measures should be taken to properly handle the existing non-performing assets of commercial banks, and the rate of non-performing assets can be reduced through appropriate capital injection or auction transfer; Finally, it is necessary to reduce the unreasonable government intervention in the business of commercial banks and let commercial banks solve their own problems in a market-oriented way.
(2) Give full play to local financial advantages and participate in enterprise restructuring and reorganization.
Give full play to the advantages of the long-established good relationship between local commercial banks and local enterprises, and actively assist enterprises to do a good job in assets verification, asset evaluation, property rights definition and so on. , take the initiative to help them with the relevant departments to formulate specific restructuring plan, put forward targeted claims processing advice. For enterprises whose creditor's rights and debts have been implemented after restructuring, the funds needed for their normal production and operation can be given priority according to the principle of credit. At the same time, focusing on asset restructuring, help enterprises become bigger and stronger, enhance their vitality and promote their development.
(3) Strengthen the self-construction of commercial banks and improve their ability to provide financing services for enterprises.
First of all, we should adjust the credit structure, enrich the types of credit business, expand the scope of corporate loans, and actively support their reasonable capital needs. At the same time, open the credit policy, simplify the business process and guarantee procedures, and provide efficient and convenient financial services for enterprises to "start their second business". Secondly, we should strengthen quality services, such as providing credit cards, bill acceptance, discount services, selected personal checks, foreign exchange transfer and other settlement methods to facilitate the deposit, withdrawal, remittance and exchange business of enterprises.
Facing China's entry into WTO, the development of China's banking industry, the rapid development of world trade and fierce market economy competition, China's banking industry plays an important role in the international market, but the problems it faces are still very obvious, because our commercial banks should correctly grasp the impact on international trade and strengthen their competitiveness in international trade in this environment, so as to maintain rapid and stable development in the future and make greater contributions to China's international trade and economic development.
refer to
[1] (America) George H. Hampl's Bank Management-Tutorials and Cases, Renmin University of China Press, April 2006, the first 1 edition;
[2] Zeng, Research on Commercial Bank Management, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics Press, August 2004, 1 version;
[3] and Wu, Commercial Bank Management, Higher Education Press, July 2005, 1 version;
[4] Yang Xihuai. Enterprise strategic management: theory and case [M]. Beijing: Higher Education Press, 2003.
[5] Peter Ross. Commercial Bank Management [M]. USA: McGraw Hill, 2003