We reviewed the financial information of 237 banks across China with a focus on banks’ trust beneficiary rights (TBRs) products and directional asset management plans (DAMPs). Overall, these assets in aggregate grew at a much slower YoY rate of 14.6% YoY to reach Rmb14.1trn at end-2016, making them equivalent to 18.9% of China GDP. However, despite slower overall growth and even shrinkage at some of the major listed banks, these assets are now far more concentrated in regional banks, particularly those in state-dominated economies in the rust belt regions.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
