A great financial retrenchment is under way, the product of both market forces and political pressure on banks to lend at home rather than abroad. In other industries (see article) globalisation looks harder to unpick
市场力量和政治压力迫使银行减少国外贷款，增加国内贷款，金融业正在倒退。在其他产业，全球化暂无大患
AT THE annual pilgrimage to Davos last month, politicians were united in agreement: the biggest danger facing the world economy is protectionism. Many of the mountaintop sermons picked out the risk of financial mercantilism, a reflux of capital from foreign markets to home ones. Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, preached against a “retreat into domestic lending and domestic financial markets”. But back in the real world the barriers to the free flow of capital are rising fast. Are the politicians hypocrites, toothless or misguided? A bit of all three.
今年1月，在一年一度的达沃斯论坛上，各国政客达成了一个共识：保护主义是当今世界经济面临的最大威胁。期间许多“山顶宝训”（注1）指出，金融重商主义（financial mercantilism注2）的风险正在抬头——国际资本开始流回母国。英国首相戈登．布朗言之凿凿，号召抵制“借贷国内化和金融市场国内化的倒退。”然而在现实世界中，资本自由流动壁垒正在迅速增长。是政客在巧言令色？还是舌头本无骨？或者是他们自己也被误导了？恐怕三者兼而有之。
That a retrenchment in cross-border credit is under way is beyond doubt. In Mr Brown’s Britain, data from the Bank of England show that in the fourth quarter of 2008 local banks sharply cut lending to foreign customers. British borrowers are themselves suffering from the withdrawal of Icelandic, Irish and other foreign lenders, which provided a big chunk of their credit at the peak of the bubble. The Australian government is creating a A$4 billion ($2.6 billion) fund to tide over commercial-property investors who cannot renew foreign debt. Corporate borrowers in many markets are about to put their foreign bank creditors to the test, as they prepare to refinance syndicated-loan facilities.
毫无疑问，跨国信贷正在萎缩。英格兰银行（Bank of England）的数据显示，就在布朗执政的英国，2008年第四季度本地银行大幅削减了面向外国客户的贷款。同时，英国借款人从冰岛和爱尔兰贷款人手中获得的资金也大幅减少，在泡沫顶峰时期，冰爱两国是他们的重要资金来源。澳大利亚政府正在建立一个规模达40亿澳元（26亿美元）的基金，以救助那些无法对外国债务展期的商业地产投资者。在很多市场上，公司借款人纷纷准备对辛迪加贷款（syndicated-loan facilities注11）进行再融资，将给它们的外国银行债权人带来重大考验。
Things are worse in emerging markets. Projections from the Institute of International Finance (IIF注3), an industry group, show that net inflows of private capital will slow to $165 billion this year, down from a peak of $929 billion in 2007. Much of that retreat is happening in the capital markets, but the banks are fleeing fastest. The IIF forecasts a net outflow of bank funds from developing countries this year, as borrowers repay more debt than they take out (see chart 1).
新兴市场面临的局面更加惨淡。据国际金融研究所（Institute of International Finance，IIF）预计，今年新兴市场的私人资本净流入将仅为1650亿美元，较2007年9290亿美元的峰值大幅下降。私人资本净流入的减少大部分发生在资本市场，但银行资金逃跑得最快。IIF预计，今年发展中国家将出现银行资金净流出，因为借款人的债务偿付将大于所获新债务。（见图1）
Central and eastern Europe is under the greatest strain, having binged on international borrowing in recent years. Relative to GDP, foreign banks’ assets in the region far exceed those in emerging Asian markets at the time of the crisis that swept across Asia in the late 1990s (see chart 2). In places such as Russia and Ukraine, local banks that had relied on borrowing abroad to finance their expansion were the first to suffer when credit dried up.
欧洲中东部地区最近几年国际举债最多，现在所面临的情况也最严重。该地区外国银行资产占GDP的比重，已经远远超过了亚洲新兴市场国家在1990年代末金融危机时的水平（见图2）。在俄罗斯和乌克兰等地区，本地银行的扩张依赖国际融资，因此在信贷干涸时也首当其冲。
Banks with foreign parents are also feeling the pinch. “The idea that foreign ownership would help to keep the tap turned on worked until the fourth quarter of 2008,” says Simon Nellis of Citigroup. At least one foreign bank in the region has been asked to make a formal commitment to provide liquidity if its local unit gets into trouble. Last month Western banks and multilateral bodies such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development launched separate initiatives to secure extra money for eastern Europe.
即使某些银行有外国母公司，日子也不好过。花旗集团的Simon Nellis称，“起先人们认为外资控股的银行总能获得资金，但自2008年第4季度开始这招也不灵了。”至少已有一家外国银行被要求作出正式承诺，当其在该地区的分支机构陷入困境时，必须为它提供流动性。1月份，各大西方银行和多边机构如欧洲复兴开发银行（European Bank for Reconstruction and Development注4）纷纷实施了各自的计划，确保东欧的特别资金。
The imponderable is just how much this retraction in banks’ foreign lending owes to political pressure to focus credit on domestic customers. “The natural operation of the system has the same effect as financial nationalism,” says David Mayes of the University of Auckland.
目前的国际信贷收缩有多少是因为迫于政治压力而将信贷集中于本国客户，这点无关紧要。奥克兰大学的David Mayes认为：“金融系统的自然运营方式（natural operation）所产生的效果，和金融民族主义别无二致。”
Banks are shrinking their balance-sheets everywhere, after all. And they have sound commercial reasons to concentrate on their home markets. One is the scarcity of capital. Among the few ways that banks can still raise money without hurting their long-term prospects is selling non-core assets abroad: Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Bank of America have all decided to offload stakes in Chinese banks. (Things are different for Western banks with well-developed franchises in emerging markets—their executives insist that they remain committed to these subsidiaries, even if growth is slowing as they become more selective.)
说到底，世界各地的银行资产负债表都在恶化。它们有充分的商业理由集中精力应对国内市场。理由之一是资本不足。对银行来说，要想获取资金又不损害长期愿景，唯一的办法只有出售非核心的外国资产——苏格兰皇家银行（Royal Bank of Scotland）、瑞银集团（UBS）和美国银行（Bank of America）纷纷决定出售自己所持有的中国银行股。（对于在新兴市场有着完善特许经营网络的西方银行来说，情况有所不同——尽管随着新兴市场客户选择余地越来越大，它们的增长率变得越来越低。但管理层认为仍然必须对这些分支机构负责，）
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The devil you know众人皆知的秘密
Another reason to look inward is rising credit risk. Such risk is easier to handle in home markets, where lenders can draw on better insight and data. According to Julian van Kan of BNP Paribas, the Basel 2 accords on bank capital also encourage retrenchment by levying higher capital charges on emerging-market assets. Some lending in central and eastern Europe has been particularly dodgy. According to the Bank for International Settlements, foreign-currency lending, much of it to households at long maturities and unhedged, represents between 40% and 55% of the total in places such as Hungary and Romania.
另一个内部原因是信贷风险越来越大。国内市场的信贷风险更容易控制，因为贷款人的调查能力更强，数据也更可靠。据巴黎银行（BNP Paribas）的Julian van Kan称，巴塞尔2条款规定银行的新兴市场资产必须有较高的资本充足率，也促使银行从那里抽回资金。一些贷向欧洲中东部地区的资金更是难以厘清。据国际清算银行（Bank for International Settlement）的数据，在匈牙利和罗马尼亚等地区，外币贷款要占总贷款的40%到55%，其中大部分长期家庭贷款，而且没有对风险进行对冲。
So politicians may not be able to stop the drying-up of cross-border credit. Then again, there is little sign that they want to. Many are employing what one banker terms the “moral suasion” of repeated calls to lend more at home. Last month George Provopoulos, the governor of Greece’s central bank, warned Greek banks not to send rescue funds abroad. Banks that have not taken taxpayers’ money can resist this more easily than others—Barclays has been left alone to get on with integrating its acquisition of the American bit of Lehman Brothers, for instance. But the reputational risks of foreign expansion in this climate are bound to weigh on all boardrooms.
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如此看来，面对国际信贷萎缩的局面，政客实在是无力回天。然而，事实上他们未必真的有心杀敌。他们不断地号召银行多多贷款给国内客户，用银行业的术语讲，叫做“道义劝告（moral suasion注5）”。上个月，希腊央行行长George Provopoulos就警告希腊银行，不要将救援资金投向海外。在这一点上，那些尚未接受纳税人资金救助的银行受到的约束要小得多。比如，没有人对巴克莱（Barclays）对莱曼兄弟（Lehman Brothers）美国部分的收购整合指手画脚。但是，在现时的环境下进行海外扩张将面临重大信誉风险，这是各大银行高层不得不考虑的问题。
State support is increasingly accompanied by explicit obligations to lend at home. The Obama administration has signalled that it will require American banks that benefit from its forthcoming rescue package to lend more. French banks that tap government assistance have pledged to increase lending by 3-4% annually. ING, a Dutch bank, which announced another round of government assistance on January 26th, promised to extend euro25 billion ($32 billion) to Dutch businesses and consumers in return. “You expect a nationalistic element when private actors have been replaced by national ones,” says John Hele, ING’s finance director.
现在，国家对银行的支持开始明确与国内贷款义务挂钩。奥巴马政府暗示，银行欲从即将实施的救援计划中受益，就必须加大借贷力度。在法国，获得政府支持的银行纷纷承诺每年增加3-4%的信贷额。荷兰银行ING承诺向荷兰企业和消费者增加250亿欧元（320亿美元）贷款，作为1月26日公布的新一轮政府救助的回报。ING的财务主管John Hele说：“国有成分正在取代私有成分，出现一些民族主义元素再正常不过了。”
An unsavoury odour危险迹象
This is economic nationalism, but of an insidious type. Western governments are not trying to keep foreign banks out of their markets: indeed, foreign credit would be welcome. But the purpose is to steer banks towards supporting businesses and jobs at home, not abroad. That has the whiff of protectionism about it.
这是一种经济民族主义，稍有不慎即成心腹大患。事实上，西方各国政府并非将外国银行拒之门外，反而非常欢迎外国信贷。但它们出发点是引导银行支持本国而不是外国的商业活动和就业。这就颇有一些保护主义（protectionism注6）的苗头。
The competition authorities are not sure what to make of it. The reason why Europe’s bank-recapitalisation schemes have been approved by the European Commission is that banks play a critical role in the economy: increased lending justifies intervention. Using taxpayers’ money to bulk up abroad would be frowned on. Concerns that state money would enable BNP Paribas to finance its proposed acquisition of the Belgian bits of Fortis gave commission officials pause when they first reviewed France’s bail-out scheme.
竞争管理当局对此尚未形成清醒的认识。欧洲委员会（European Commission）批准了欧洲银行资本重组计划，是因为银行在改经济体中的关键作用——只要信贷量有所增加，那就证明政府干涉是正确的。将纳税人的钱用于海外扩张是不会被通过的。由于担心巴黎银行在获得国有资金后将有能力实现收购富通集团（Fortis）比利时部分的计划，委员会在第一次审议法国救援计划时踯躅良久。
Such worries are only likely to increase. Some rivals are already complaining about ING’s ability to gather deposits in their markets now that it is clearly in the lee of the state. It is “unbearable”, sighs one French banker. (The Dutch bank points out that lots of institutions have state backing and that it is doing nothing that it was not doing a year ago.)
类似的担忧只会越来越深。一些竞争对手开始抱怨ING，认为其在政府的庇护下获得了吸收贷款方面的优势。这是“不可忍受的”，一家法国银行嚷道。（ING回击说，许多机构都获得了政府支持，而且自己所进行的都是原有业务。）
The short-term phenomenon of financial nationalism may be driven by the market as much as by politicians. However, that is not so of the long-term threat to cross-border capital flows: the changes that regulators make to the landscape for multinational banks, especially in Europe.
在短期金融民族主义现象形成的因素中，政府因素和市场因素同样重要。但是，对长期资本跨国流动的威胁就不是那么回事了：主要原因管理层对跨国银行图景的重新界定，尤其是在欧洲。
Changes there will be, thanks largely to the failure of Iceland’s banks last year. Their implosion, after years of rapid expansion abroad, rammed home the unpleasant truth that banks may be global in life but are national in death. Depositors in other countries, who were entitled to compensation from the Icelandic deposit-insurance fund, found that the pot in Reykjavik was too small to pay them when the banks went bust. Their own governments had to step in. “It is hard to overstate the damage that Iceland did to the trust among regulators,” says Bob Penn of Allen & Overy, a law firm. “It made real problems that until then had only existed in theory.”
这一转变主要归因于去年冰岛银行的倒闭潮。在经历了为期数年的急速海外扩张后，这些银行在一夜之间轰然倒塌，猛然揭示了令人不安的事实：银行可以作为全球企业存在，但只能作为民族企业消亡。外国存款人发现，尽管受冰岛存款保险基金保护，但如果银行果真倒闭，雷克雅未克（注7）根本无力补偿他们所受的损失。于是他们的本国政府不得不出手相救。Allen & Overy律师事务所的Bob Penn说：“冰岛事件对管理层之间的相互信任造成了不可挽回的伤害。在冰岛发生的事情过去只存在于理论中，现在居然真的发生了。”
One answer is to bring regulators of foreign parents and their local subsidiaries closer together, perhaps even to create a single supervisor of cross-border banks. A review of European arrangements, led by Jacques de Larosiere, a former managing director of the IMF, is due to deliver its initial recommendations later this month. The question of how to regulate big global banks is also on the agenda of the G20 countries. Many observers doubt that radical proposals are in the works, however, because of touchiness about sovereignty. And the evidence to date suggests that regulators are focusing on tending their own turf, not sharing it with others.
怎么解决这一问题呢？一种办法是加强国内分支机构及其外国母银行的监管者之间的联系，甚至建立一个单一的跨国银行监管机构。一项欧洲银行统一监管方案正在由IMF前总裁Jacques de Larosiere牵头审议，初步结果将在本月下旬公布。G20集团（注8）亦已将大型跨国银行的监管问题提上日程。但是，许多观察人士指出，由于触及到敏感的主权问题，彻底的监管方案仍在讨论中。最近的迹象表明，监管者只想各扫门前雪，根本不想精诚合作。
Regulators in Switzerland have introduced a new capital regime for UBS and Credit Suisse, the country’s two biggest banks, which restricts their total leverage as well as measuring their risk-weighted assets. Nothing wrong with that, except that the leverage ratio explicitly excludes lending the banks undertake domestically from calculations of capital. Reducing the amount of foreign assets that Swiss banks hold is sensible but privileging domestic lending so flagrantly is alarming.
瑞士的监管机构已经针对瑞银集团和瑞士信贷（Credit Suisse）建立了一个新的资本规则，对两家银行的总杠杆率和风险加权资产（risk-weighted assets注9）度量进行了严格限定。这一措施原本无可指摘，但其中明确规定，在计算杠杆率时，贷向国内银行的资金不计入资本。削减瑞士银行外国资产持有量可谓明智之举，但赤裸裸地偏袒国内借贷却令人深感不安。
The Financial Services Authority (FSA), Britain’s financial regulator, has also been busy, issuing new proposals on the management of liquidity by banks (including branches of foreign institutions) in its domain. The proposals are designed to make banks more self-sufficient if disaster strikes a parent. The FSA says it may grant waivers to these rules, but only if a bank’s main supervisor takes an equally firm approach. That makes it far likelier that others will follow its lead.
英国金融服务局（Financial Services Authority，FSA，英国金融监管机构）最近亦十分繁忙，主要任务是起草新的银行流动性管理方案（包括外国机构英国分部）。这一方案的目标是确保各银行在其母公司面临倒闭是仍能自保。FSA表示，只有某家银行的母国主管机构对其实行了同样坚实的政策，才可能获得豁免权。这一做法使得其他国家很可能采取类似规则。
New rules on liquidity are certainly needed—the Basel Committee of bank regulators is also at work on a scheme—but they threaten to reverse two important trends in European banking over the past two decades. The first is centralised liquidity management, enabling cross-border banks to move money between different territories as needs demand. The FSA rules may prefigure a world where large pools of liquidity and capital remain trapped within borders as insurance against the worst. That is not just inefficient; it could exacerbate problems if money were stuck in one place but urgently needed in another.
制定新的流动性规则是当务之急，这点毋庸置疑——巴塞尔银行监管委员会（Basel Committee of bank regulators）目前也在酝酿新的机制——但这些规则将颠覆20余年来欧洲银行业的两大发展趋势。首先是集中的流动性管理（centralised liquidity management）趋势。在此模式下，跨国银行可以根据需要在国与国之间调配资金。但在FSA的规则下，流动性和资本被囤积在一国之内，不再跨国界流动，以此作为应对最坏情形的保险机制。然而，此举不但效率低下，而且在资金囤积地并非资金需求地时只能使问题更严重。
The second trend is the responsibility that has increasingly been entrusted by branch supervisors (the “host” regulators) to a parent bank’s supervisor (the “home” regulator) to ensure that an institution is properly capitalised and well run. Strengthening the liquidity regime is an obvious way for host supervisors to assert greater control but it clearly undermines the ideals of the single market.
其次，二十余年来，分支机构的监管者（“东道国”监管者）越来越趋向于将监管责任委托给母银行的监管者（“母国”监管者），以保证金融机构结构合理，运行良好。现在，强化流动性规则必然导致东道国监管者控制力增加，但这显然不利于单一市场的基本原则。
Banks that operate across borders are already preparing for a more difficult future. Mr Hele says that ING is studying all aspects of its operations to see how it can cope with a more fragmented landscape in which it is harder to move money around and regulatory compliance costs more. One option is to use excess assets to increase liquidity, by internally securitising loans made in one country and moving them to another to back liabilities there.
跨国银行则正在为更加困难的将来未雨绸缪。Hele说，ING正在全面审视自己的运营模式，试图找出对策应付将来各个分支各自为政局面。在新规则下，资金调配将更为困难，规则的遵循成本（compliance costs注10）也将更大。一种方法是利用富余资产来增加流动性，具体来说就是将一国的贷款先内部证券化（internally securitise），在转移到另一国支持那里的负债。
The threat of financial mercantilism can be overstated. International flows of capital are not about to vanish—corporate bond markets had a bouncy January, for example. And the risks of financial globalisation can also be dismissed too easily. There are clearly good reasons for local regulators to fret if they face heavy exposures to foreign banks (as in central and eastern Europe). But the risk that the recent homeward flow of bank assets will ossify into a less efficient, less flexible cross-border banking system is real and growing.
金融重商主义的危害也许有点危言耸听。资本的国际流动还没到消亡的时候——比如1月份的公司债券市场就相当活跃。同时，金融全球化的风险可能也没有如此巨大。如果一国过度依赖外国银行（比如东欧和中欧），其监管者深感忧虑亦在情理之中。然而，最近银行资产向母国回流的趋势正在朝低效、僵化的跨国银行系统越滑越深，这一风险是实实在在的，而且在不断加大。
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注释
注1：the mountaintop sermons圣经里有“登山宝训”（the sermon on the mount）：a sermon given by Jesus in which he explains his religious ideas. It is one of the best-known parts of the New Testament of the Bible, and it includes a set of statements called the beatitudes, in which Jesus names the types of people who are 'blessed' 这里应该是从这个典故引申过来的
注2：mercantilism重商主义：资产阶级
最初的经济学说，15—18世纪初受到普遍推崇的一种经济哲学。主要观点是1、贵金属（货币）是衡量财富的唯一标准。一切经济活动的目的就是为了获取金银。除了开采金银矿以外，对外贸易是货币财富的真正的来源。因此，要使国家变得富强，就应尽量使出口大于进口，因为贸易出超才会导致贵金属的净流入。因此，政府应该竭力鼓励出口，不主张甚至限制商品（尤其是奢侈品）进口。2、对外贸易必须保持顺差，即出口必须超过进口。由于任一时点上的金银总量是固定的，所以一国的获利总是基于其他国家的损失，即国际贸易是一种“零和游戏”。早期重商主义主张采取行政手段，禁止货币输出和积累货币财富。晚期重商主义认为国家应该将货币输出国外，以便扩大对外国商品的购买。不过在对外贸易中谨守的原则是购买外国商品的货币总额，必须少于出售本国商品所获得的总额，其目的仍是要保持有更多的货币流回本国。
注3：国际金融研究所Institute for International Finance：一家由主要银行和金融机构组成的全球性协会。这个组织是在1983年在美国华盛顿为回应国际债务危机而成立的，业务包括分析新兴 市场经济体中的风险、提供关于新兴市场金融与管理的政策论坛、并促进成员与世界银行和区域性开发银行等机构之间的合作。
注4：欧洲复兴开发银行European Bank for Reconstruction and Development：１９９１年４月１４日正式开业，总部设在伦敦。宗旨是帮助和支持中欧和东欧国家向市场经济转化。投资的主要目标是中东欧国家的私营企业和这些国家的基础设施。
注5：道义劝告moral suasion： 中央银行利用其声望与地位，对商业银行和金融机构经常发出通告，指示或与各金融体系的负责人举行面谈，劝告其遵守政府政策，自动采取若干相应措施。道义劝告没有法律效力。
注6：（贸易）保护主义protectionism：一种为了保护本国制造业免受国外竞争压力而对进口产品设定极高关税、限定进口配额或其它减少进口额的经济政策。与自由贸易模式正好相反。贸易保护主义经常被人们与重商主义联系起来。重商主义认为保持一个可观的贸易顺差对一个国家是很有利的。
注7：雷克雅未克Reykjavik：冰岛首都
注8：20国集团G20：由8国集团、欧盟以及一些亚洲、非洲、拉丁美洲、大洋洲国家组成，目的是防止类似亚洲金融风暴的重演，让有关国家就国际经济、货币政策举行非正式对话，以利于国际金融和货币体系的稳定。属于布雷顿森林体系框架内非正式对话的一种机制。
注9：风险加权资产risk-weighted assets：In terms of the minimum amount of capital that is required within banks and other institutions, based on a percentage of the assets, weighted by risk. The idea of risk-weighted assets is a move away from having a static requirement for capital. Instead, it is based on the riskiness of a bank's assets. For example, loans that are secured by a letter of credit would be weighted riskier than a mortgage loan that is secured with collateral.
注10：遵循成本compliance cost：Expenditure of time or money in conforming with government requirements such as legislation or regulation. For example, people or organizations registered for value added tax have the extra burden of having to keep detailed records of all input tax and output tax to facilitate the completion of VAT returns. This may necessitate them having to employ someone skilled in this field, which would be regarded a compliance cost.
注11：辛迪加贷款syndicated-loan facilities：又称银团贷款，是由获准经营贷款业务的一家或数家银行牵头，多家银行与非银行金融机构参加而组成的银行集团采用同一贷款协议，按商定的期限和条件向同一借款人提供融资的贷款方式。国际银团是由不同国家的多家银行组成的银行集团。一般来说，银团贷款金额大、期限长，贷款条件较优惠，既能保障项目资金的及时到位又能降低建设单位的融资成本，是重大基础设施或大型工业项目建设融资的主要方式。服务对象为有巨额资金需求的大中型企业、企业集团和国家重点建设项目。