No interest rate cuts for the time being! The central bank just released
Original Zhongfang Daily China Real Estate Daily
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This means that China’s future monetary policy still has room for easing, but this does not mean that interest rate cuts are imminent.
Xu Qian, reporter of China Housing News, reports from Beijing.
The market expected LPR to be lowered, and it fell through.
On September 20th, the central bank released the loan market quotation rate (LPR) in September: the one-year LPR is 3.35%, and the five-year LPR is 3.85%. Compared with the LPR data in August, the LPR remained unchanged in September.
On this day, the central bank also carried out a seven-day reverse repurchase operation of 571.9 billion yuan, and the winning bid rate was 1.7%, which was the same as before.
The day before, the Federal Reserve announced the latest interest rate resolution: lowering the target range of the benchmark interest rate to 4.75% to 5%, and cutting interest rates by 50 basis points at one time, which provided more independent space for China’s monetary policy adjustment.
As a result, many market participants predict that China’s central bank will follow up with interest rate cuts with a high probability, which may be 20 basis points. However, China’s central bank has chosen a relatively conservative strategy, and monetary policy still adheres to the tone of "taking me as the mainstay".
In fact, since this year, China’s central bank has cut interest rates twice. Once in February, the LPR over five years was greatly reduced by 25 basis points to 3.95%; The other time was in July, the 5-year LPR was lowered by 10 basis points again, and the LPR entered a historical low. At present, it is still in the observation period of the policy effect after the interest rate cut in July, and the urgency of short-term downward adjustment is not great.
On September 5, at the press conference on the theme of "Promoting High-quality Development" held by the State Council Office, the voice of the top management of the central bank revealed the next monetary policy orientation.
Lu Lei, deputy governor of the central bank, said that the People’s Bank of China will continue to adhere to the supportive monetary policy, speed up the implementation of the policies and measures that have been introduced, and more strongly support the high-quality economic development. In terms of interest rate in the future, we should give full play to the driving role of the recent policy interest rate and the quoted interest rate in the loan market, so as to promote the steady decline of corporate financing and residents’ credit costs.
This means that China’s future monetary policy still has room for easing, but this does not mean that interest rate cuts are imminent.
"Policy adjustments such as RRR cuts and interest rate cuts also need to observe economic trends." Zou Lan, director of the Monetary Policy Department of the Central Bank, said at this news conference that due to factors such as the speed at which bank deposits are diverted to asset management products and the narrowing of the bank’s net interest margin, the deposit and loan interest rates are facing certain constraints.
This statement by the central bank shows the difficulty of further lowering interest rates.
Recently, the biggest change in the deposit and loan environment of banks lies in the higher cost of the source of funds. Since the beginning of this year, with the decline of deposit interest rate and the control of "manual interest payment" of deposits, deposits have moved to the bank wealth management market. In the first half of the year, the scale of bank wealth management exceeded 29 trillion yuan, approaching an all-time high.
At present, the pressure on the net interest margin of banks is relatively large as a whole. According to the State Financial Supervision and Administration, the net interest margin of the banking industry was 1.54% in the second quarter of this year, which was lower than the warning line of 1.8% for six consecutive quarters.
"If the policy interest rate is continuously lowered in the short term and the LPR quotation is followed up, and the large-scale stock mortgage interest rate also has a large room for downward adjustment, the bank’s net interest margin will face a large downward pressure in the second half of the year, which is not conducive to the stability of bank operations; If the deposit interest rate is lowered significantly with a view to stabilizing the interest margin, it may lead to the risk of large-scale’ moving’ of bank deposits to asset management products such as wealth management, which is also not conducive to the stability of bank operations. " Wang Qing, chief macro analyst of Oriental Jincheng, said.
At the same time, "the pulling effect of lowering interest rates on the real estate market is obviously weakened." Li Yujia, chief researcher of the Housing Policy Research Center of Guangdong Urban and Rural Planning Institute, said that from 2022 to now, mortgage interest rates has dropped by about 200 basis points, but its pulling effect on the commercial housing market is obviously weakened. The main reason is that the market’s expectation of housing prices is pessimistic, the number of second-hand housing listings is rising, and the trend of "price for quantity" is difficult to reverse, which cannot be changed by interest rate cuts.
In this case, the main purpose of the central bank to continue to cut interest rates is not to stimulate the property market, but to reduce the burden on entities and private investment, which is necessary.
"The policy effect of RRR reduction at the beginning of the year is still emerging. At present, the average statutory deposit reserve ratio of financial institutions is about 7%, and there is still some room. The central bank will closely observe the effect of the policy and reasonably grasp the intensity and rhythm of monetary policy regulation according to the economic recovery, the realization of the target and the specific problems faced by macroeconomic operation. " Zou Wei said.
"Considering the current economic situation and price trend, China’s central bank may cut the main policy interest rate in the fourth quarter. In addition, focusing on strengthening coordination and cooperation with fiscal policies and supporting the issuance of government bonds, there is also the possibility of RRR reduction in the fourth quarter. " Wang Qing predicted.
Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of Zhaolian, also said that considering the internal needs and external changes, the People’s Bank of China will probably implement a comprehensive RRR cut of 0.25 ~ 0.5 percentage points during the year, reduce the policy interest rate by 10 ~ 20 basis points, promote the simultaneous downward trend of LPR, and promote the steady decline of social comprehensive financing costs.
Compared with the interest rate cut, the voice is higher. When will the interest rate adjustment of stock mortgage come? The IPR did not move, in the view of some people, or to provide space for lowering the interest rate of existing mortgage loans.
According to institutional data, the stock mortgage generated between 2015 and 2022 is about 30 trillion yuan, with an average interest rate of about 5.2%; After the interest rate of the first home loan was lowered by 73 basis points in August last year, the weighted average interest rate dropped to about 4.47%. The current new mortgage interest rate is as low as 3.1%, and it may continue to drop.
The failure to adjust the interest rate of existing mortgage loans has also affected the admission of potential buyers, who are worried that the interest rate of mortgage loans will fall again.
"At this stage, the market has a high voice for lowering the interest rate of existing mortgage again. Lowering the interest rate of existing mortgage is conducive to alleviating the phenomenon of early mortgage repayment, enhancing the sustainability of residents’ debt, promoting the repair of residents’ consumer demand and forming a fairer financing environment." Wen Bin, chief economist of China Minsheng Bank, said.
The latest news from the market shows that China may reduce the interest rate of existing housing loans as early as September, and some interest rates may be lowered by as much as 50 basis points; Commercial banks are making final preparations to meet the upcoming adjustment of mortgage interest rates.
If the news can land, it will undoubtedly be an inspiration to the property market.
Original title: "Do not cut interest rates for the time being! The central bank just released "
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