Performance of the banking sector: the situation in Russia and Ukraine affected the market risk appetite. The CSI 300 index fell 1.7% in the week. Superimposed on market concerns about the decline of loan pricing and the possible overweight of the real economy, the banking index fell 3.7% in the week, underperforming the CSI 300 index by 2.0pct; The stock market value of northbound capital holding banks decreased by 12.379 billion yuan compared with last week.
Real estate regulation has entered the “stable sales” link, which helps to form an important support for “stable growth”. In the early stage, Chongqing, Ganzhou, Jiangxi and other non restricted cities reduced the proportion of down payment, and the housing loan lending cycle of 103 key cities was shortened. On the basis of this, many cities reduced the down payment and interest rate of mortgage loans to stimulate the recovery of sales. The financial Associated Press reported that on February 22, the six major banks uniformly lowered the housing loan interest rate in Guangzhou, and the first and second interest rates were reduced by 20bp; On the 25th, Zhongxin Jingwei reported that several banks in Nantong, Jiangsu reduced the down payment ratio of housing loans to a minimum of 20%. We believe that: ① the shift of real estate stability maintenance policy to the demand side will help resolve risks and promote “stable growth”. It is expected that there will be room for continuous relaxation in the future. Because the stability of the demand side of house purchase under the framework of urban policy implementation is the meaning of the stable and healthy development of real estate. Timely and appropriate stability of housing sales will help restore the enterprise’s own hematopoietic capacity, alleviate the risk pressure of the real estate industry and stabilize market expectations. It is expected that there is still room for continuous relaxation in the follow-up. ② Mortgage interest rates still have great room for decline, which is conducive to the recovery of real estate sales in the later stage. Over the past decade, with each round of “steady growth” and the central bank’s interest rate cut, the change range of mortgage interest rate is greater than that of policy interest rate. Although the 5Y LPR was only lowered by 5bp in January this year, based on historical backtracking and the current insufficient mortgage demand, the higher EVA of mortgage loans and the deepening contradiction between supply and demand will stimulate the decline of mortgage interest rate to be significantly greater than the change of policy interest rate. Considering that the interest rate of mortgage loans leads the growth rate of real estate sales for about a quarter, it is estimated that the follow-up mortgage loans may show a trend of “volume increase and price decrease”, which is conducive to driving the growth rate of real estate sales to the bottom and stabilizing. ③ The demand side stimulus represented by the behavior under the mortgage interest rate has a mixed impact on bank operations, and there are more positive factors of “stabilizing credit and reducing risk”. Positive factors: the decline of mortgage loan interest rate is conducive to stabilizing real estate sales, boosting the credit demand of real estate and related industrial chains, increasing sales collection, easing the pressure of enterprise cash flow and reducing the risk of debt storm of real estate enterprises at the same time; Negative factors: the downward pricing of mortgage loans will have a negative impact on asset side pricing, but it is estimated that under the condition of constant LPR, only the impact of new mortgage price reduction is limited. It is assumed that the mortgage interest rate will decline evenly by 20bp in 2022, and the impact on NIM is less than 1bp.
Strengthening the standardized management of agreement deposits will help banks control the cost of liabilities and stabilize the interest margin. Caixin.com reported that the self-discipline mechanism of interest rate pricing recently regulates the bank’s absorption of agreed deposits. First, it should be implemented in strict accordance with the period of more than 5Y, and the interest shall be calculated according to the current deposit interest rate for early withdrawal; Second, except for the designated object of establishment, it is not allowed to establish agreement deposits for other units and individuals; Third, commercial banks shall not start new non-conforming businesses from now on, and the stock business shall not be renewed when it naturally expires. The direct impact of standardization is expected to be mainly in two aspects: ① the scale of non-conforming agreement deposits will decline and drive the corresponding improvement of bank debt cost; ② The potential arbitrage risk of upside down of long-term deposit and loan interest rates decreased. In the future, there will still be pressure on the liability management of the banking system. It cannot be ruled out that the supervision will continue to strengthen the cost management of other types of liabilities.
Investment logic and suggestions for bank stocks: Recently, the bank index has been adjusted. On the one hand, it is affected by the impact of overseas events. On the other hand, the market is hesitant about the “steady growth” initiative and has differences on the sustainability of “wide credit”. The current momentum index of the banking sector is expected to continue to rise, and the current trading index is still in a reasonable level. In the last few working days of late February, the discount rate of silver notes plunged again, which reflected the impulse behavior of loans at the end of the month. It is worth paying attention to whether the effective credit demand and investment demand continue. We continue to recommend the main line of steady operation of urban rural commercial banks in high-quality regions such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Nanjing, Changshu, Jiangsu and Bank Of Hangzhou Co.Ltd(600926) .
Risk warning: the economic growth rate is lower than expected; Real estate risk situation disturbance; Financial profit giving entities exceeded expectations.
