第十一篇

“Fat, dumb and happy,” commercial banks are being quickly replaced as financial intermediaries

　　(1)  What would happen to the U.S. economy if all its commercial banks suddenly closed their doors? Throughout most of American history, the answer would have been a disaster of considerable proportions, akin to the Depression brought about by the chain-reaction bank failures in the early 1930s. But in 1993 the startling answer is that a shutdown by banks might be far from disastrous.

　　(2)  Consider this: though the economic recovery is now 27 months old, not a single net new dollar has been lent to business by banks in all that time. Last week the Federal Reserve reported that the amount of loans the nation’s largest banks have made to businesses fell an additional $2.4 billion in the week ending June 9, to $274.8 billion. Fearful that the scarcity of bank credit might undermine the fragile economy, the White House and federal agencies are working feverishly to encourage banks to open their lending windows. In the past two weeks, government regulators have introduced steps to make it easier for banks to lend. For instance, less pa-perwork will be needed to process loans, and formal appraisals are no longer required for every real estate loan.

　　(3)  Is the government’s concern fully justified? Who really needs banks these days? Hardly anyone, it turns out. While banks once dominated business lending, today nearly 80% of all such loans come from 　　nonbank lenders like life insurers, brokerage firms and finance companies. Banks used to be the only source of money in town. Now businesses and individuals can write checks on their insurance companies, get a loan from a pension fund, and deposit paychecks in a money-market account with a brokerage firm. “It is possible for banks to die and still have a booming economy,” says Edward Furash, a Washington bank consultant.

　　(4)  The irony is that the accelerating slide into irrelevance comes just as the banks reaped record profits of $43 billion over the past 15 months, creating the impression that the industry is staging a comeback. But that income was not the result of smart lending decisions. Instead of earning money by financing America’s recovery, the banks mainly invested their funds — on which they were paying a bargain-basement 2% or so — in risk-free Treasury bonds that ______ 7%. That left bank officers with little to do except put their feet on their desks and watch the interest roll in.

　　(5)  Those profits may have come at a price. Not only did bankers lose many loyal customers by withholding credit, they also accidentally opened the door to a herd of nonbank competitors, who swarmed into the lending market. “The banking industry didn’t see this threat,” says Furash. “They are being fat, dumb and happy. They didn’t realize that banking is essential to a modern economy, but banks are not.”

　　(6)  The soft economy has often been used by banks as an excuse for the slowdown in extending credit. Yet evidence abounds that banks are still gun-shy` about lending to business. And no wonder. More than $125 bil-lion in failed loans to real estate buyers, developing countries, farmers and the energy industry have had to be written off in the past five years.

　　(7)  The invasion of other financial companies eager to make loans has caused deep damage to the banking industry. “The banks are clearly losing the franchise` of lending to business,” says David Wyss, senior financial economist for DRI/McGraw-Hill, a large economic consulting firm. “That should be scaring them because this is where their real profits are.”

　　(8)  Though banks lost most of their blue-chip corporate clients years ago to Wall Street’s capital markets, they still retained another profitable part of banking: the small and mid-size business borrower. But that has changed in the past few years. The spread of computer technology and sophisticated new loan strategies reduced both the risk and cost of lending to small business owners. Soon financial giants such as Merrill Lynch and John Han-cock, as well as smaller finance companies like Access Capital, went after the banks’ last domain of business borrowers.

　　(9)  The new competitors have succeeded in part because banks have alienated so many of their traditional customers. “My experience with banks has been horrible,” says Barry Weinstein, president of Fulton Computer Products in Rockville Centre, New York. “Even if you bank with someone for 25 years, that still doesn’t amount to a hill of beans`.” Sales at Weinstein’s company jumped from $900,000 in 1988 to $18.5 million last year. Yet when Weinstein applied for a loan with 12 banks over a period of 24 months, all turned him down, even though he was never late in repaying his previous debts. He eventually borrowed $1 million from Access Capital, a fast-growing finance company based in New York.

　　(10)  Joseph Ricci, who runs a private school in Maine for children with behavioral problems, spent more than two years trying to borrow $700,000 from as many as five banks. But even with $17 million in assets and an unerred credit history, Ricci walked away empty-handed. “We demonstrated to all of them how we could carry the loan. But the banks were just not lending money to business,” he says. Ricci went to a finance company and within six weeks got a loan.

　　(11)  That’s the way the credit crunch has brought rapid growth to many nonbank lenders. “There is plenty of demand for financing from small companies,” says Access Capital president Miles Stuchin. “It’s just that the banks are turning them down.” Stuchin set up a finance company in 1986 that Inc. Magazine last year placed in the top 20% of the 500 fastest-growing companies in the U.S.

　　(12)  Perhaps the greatest threat to commercial banks has come from life insurers and pension funds. The two have combined assets of $4.5 trillion, exceeding that of the entire banking industry. They are the largest source of financing for U.S. industry. While bank lending was dropping during the past two years, loans by life insurers jumped $50 billion.

　　(13)  One such loan went to IDB Communications Group, a telecommunications service company based in Culver City, California, whose $78 million line of credit was canceled by a group of banks. “I spent every wak-ing hour for half a year on this issue,” says IDB’s chief financial officer, Ed Cheramy. “It was the worst experi-ence of my life.”

　　(14)  Coming to the rescue with a $20 million loan was Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, the na-tion’s third largest insurance company. In the past year, TIAA has lent a record $3.5 billion to business. Some $225 billion in loans to business are now held by the life-insurance industry, up 11% from two years ago.

　　(15)  Wall Street firms have also cherry-picked some of the banks’ best business. Merrill Lynch, for example, has been targeting smaller companies since the mid-1980s. Last year its business financial-services division had about 3,000 clients and $800 million in loan commitments.

　　(16)  With their loan portfolios under fire, banks are in danger of losing their depositors as well. Americans have withdrawn more than $500 billion from low-yielding bank accounts over the past three years in favor of higher-paying investments like mutual funds. Even the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s $100,000 guarantee is no longer exclusively available to banks and S&Ls. Brokerage firms like Prudential Securities now offer “insured income accounts” with checking privileges and government insurance.

　　(17)  A few banks are vigorously working to recapture their share of business lending. This spring Chemical Bank, the nation’s third largest, kicked off the biggest marketing blitz in its history to attract small and me-dium-size business borrowers. An army of 1,800 lending officers, including bank president Walter Shipley and chairman John McGillicuddy, went knocking door to door at 5,000 companies across five states. “Am I con-cerned about Wall Street firms and investment bankers coming into the market? Absolutely,” says Frank Lourenso, who heads Chemical’s midmarket lending division. “They are real players, and I take them very se-riously. But we’re going to be very aggressive in looking for new business.”

　　(18)  That drive was underscored last month when the Federal Reserve gave Chemical the green light to sell and underwrite corporate bonds. Normally banks are barred from such investment-banking activity under the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. But the Fed cited a loophole, and its decision allows certain banks to take on Wall Street directly in wooing business borrowers.

　　(19)  Unshackling the banking sector entirely from such Depression-era regulatory chains may be the only way to reverse the 20-year structural decline of the banks. But that is something the Congress has steadfastly refused to do. Nor do such comprehensive reforms appear on President Clinton’s agenda. Yet until such changes are made, banks, once a fixture on the U.S. financial landscape, will continue their slow fade.

　　【參考譯文】: 銀行過時了嗎？
　　“癡肥且沾沾自喜”的商業(yè)銀行，其金融媒介的身份正被迅速取代中
　　(1) 假如美國所有的商業(yè)銀行突然一起關(guān)門，對美國經(jīng)濟造成什么影響？放眼美國大部分的歷史，這個答案將是：超大規(guī)模的金融災(zāi)難，就有如1930年代早期，銀行像骨牌效應(yīng)般連鎖倒閉所造成的“大蕭條”。但是時至1993年，令人吃驚的答案是：銀行倒閉可能無關(guān)痛癢。

　　(2) 想想這件事實：經(jīng)濟復(fù)蘇已經(jīng)持續(xù)27個月，但在此期間銀行對企業(yè)新增貸款的凈額是零。上周聯(lián)邦儲備委員會報道，全國大銀行對企業(yè)貸款在6月9日的前一個星期之內(nèi)又減少了24億美元成為2748億美元。在害怕銀行信用不足對脆弱的經(jīng)濟造成破壞的情況下，白宮與聯(lián)邦機構(gòu)極力促成銀行開啟它們的貸款窗口。過去兩周來，政府當(dāng)局引用一些新措施，讓銀行更容易貸款。例如簡化貸款的紙上作業(yè)，而且所有房地產(chǎn)貸款不再需要正式的估價程序。

　　(3) 政府的擔(dān)心有道理嗎？現(xiàn)在誰要靠銀行？幾乎沒有。銀行曾經(jīng)獨霸企業(yè)貸款，但是現(xiàn)在80% 的企業(yè)貸款都由非銀行機構(gòu)接管，例如壽險公司、經(jīng)紀(jì)行及融資公司。銀行曾是唯一的現(xiàn)款來源，但現(xiàn)在企業(yè)與個人可以其保險公司名義開立支票，向退休基金貸款，并把薪水支票存在經(jīng)紀(jì)行的貨幣市場賬戶里。華盛頓的銀行顧問Edward Furash 指出：“即使銀行死光光，我們還是可能擁有蓬勃的經(jīng)濟�！�

　　(4) 具有諷剌意義的是，正在銀行加速落入敗部的當(dāng)兒，它們卻在過去15個月以來累積了創(chuàng)記錄的430億美元利潤，制造出銀行業(yè)卷土重來的印象。但這些收入并非來自明智的貸款決策。銀行沒有因貸款給經(jīng)濟復(fù)蘇的美國而獲利，卻將它們的基金投資在無風(fēng)險且提供7% 高利率的政府債券。而這些基金卻只提供貢獻存款存戶2% 的微薄利息。這種投資策略讓銀行職員無事可做，只須把腳蹺在桌上等待利息滾滾涌入。

　　(5) 這些利潤可能是有代價的。銀行不只因為緊縮信用而失去許多忠實顧客，而且不經(jīng)意地敞開大門，讓一大批非銀行機構(gòu)蜂擁進入貸款市場。Furash 說：“銀行業(yè)還沒意識到威脅。它們癡肥又沾沾自喜，而且并不了解：現(xiàn)代經(jīng)濟的確需要貸款業(yè)，但并不一定需要銀行�！�

　　(6) 銀行常以孱弱的經(jīng)濟為貸款下降的理由。但是諸多證據(jù)顯示銀行對企業(yè)貸款仍是小心翼翼。這并不奇怪。過去5年，銀行必須想辦法沖銷1250億美元的呆賬，這些呆賬來自對不動產(chǎn)購買者、發(fā)展中國家、農(nóng)民與能源工業(yè)的貸款。

　　(7) 熱衷貸款的其他金融機構(gòu)大舉入侵，對銀行造成深切的傷害。戴維"威斯（David Wyss）是大型經(jīng)濟顧問社DRI/McGraw-Hill的資深金融學(xué)家。他指出：“銀行明顯地失去企業(yè)貸款的特權(quán)。它們應(yīng)該感到恐懼，因為這才是它們真正的利潤所在�！�

　　(8)雖然銀行在多年以前就將大型績優(yōu)公司拱手讓給華爾街的資金市場，但是它們?nèi)耘f保留住另一塊沃土：中小企業(yè)。這種情況在過去數(shù)年亦起變化。電腦科技的普及與先進的新貸款策略大幅降低對中小企業(yè)貸款的風(fēng)險與成本。很快的，金融巨人如默林" 林奇（Merrill Lynch） 與約翰" 漢考克（John Hancock）與小型融資公司如Access Capital, 都來搶奪銀行比較后的一群企業(yè)顧客。

　　(9) 新的競爭者能成功，部分是因為銀行疏遠了它們傳統(tǒng)的顧客�！拔遗c銀行來往的經(jīng)驗非�？膳�，”Barry Weinstein 是位于紐約州Rockville Centre 的Fulton電腦公司的總經(jīng)理，他說：“即使你跟銀行來往個25年，你們的交情還不如一個屁�！盬einstein的公司營業(yè)額自1988年的90萬美元跳升到去年的1850萬美元，但他花了24個月向12家銀行申請貸款。雖然他從來沒有拖欠債款的記錄，但是所有的銀行都拒絕借錢。他比較后向紐約的Access Capital, 一家快速成長的融資公司，借了100萬美元。

　　(10) Joesph Ricci 在緬因州開一所教導(dǎo)行為偏差兒童的私立學(xué)校，他花了超過兩年的時間，向五家銀行申貸一筆70萬元的款子。即使他有1700萬美元的資產(chǎn)以及毫無瑕疵的信用記錄，Ricci 仍然兩手空空走出銀行。他說：“我們跟所有銀行說爛了嘴證明我們有能力背負這筆貸款，但是它們就是不貸款給企業(yè)�！盧icci 轉(zhuǎn)而找尋融資公司，六周內(nèi)就借到了錢。

　　(11) 這就是緊縮信用讓非銀行機構(gòu)大發(fā)利市的現(xiàn)象。Access Capital 公司總經(jīng)理Miles Stuchin說：“小企業(yè)對貸款的需求很高，只是銀行卻讓它們失望了。”Stuchin  在1986年設(shè)立Access Capital, 在去年被《Inc.雜志》列在美國500家成長比較快企業(yè)的前20% 區(qū)間之中。

　　(12) 商業(yè)銀行的比較大威脅也許是來自壽險公司與退休基金。這兩種產(chǎn)業(yè)合起來的資產(chǎn)有4.5兆美元，比整個銀行業(yè)都大。它們是美國產(chǎn)業(yè)界比較大的金主。過去兩年銀行貸款下跌，而壽險公司的貸款卻跳升了500億美元。

　　(13) 其中一筆貸款是調(diào)進位在加州Culver City 的IDB 通訊集團，因為銀行取消了其7800萬美元信用額度。IDB 的財務(wù)總經(jīng)理Ed Cheramy 說：“半年來我無時無刻不在想法子擺平這件事，此及我一生中比較恐怖的經(jīng)驗。”

　　(14) 帶著2000萬美元來救命的是美國第三大保險公司 Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association。 去年TIAA 貸出空前的35億美元。目前壽險業(yè)的對企業(yè)貸款達2250億美元，比兩年前增長11% 。

　　(15) 華爾街經(jīng)紀(jì)行也挑了幾樣銀行比較賺錢的營業(yè)項目來經(jīng)營。例如Merrill Lynch 公司自1980 年代中期起便將目標(biāo)對準(zhǔn)小企業(yè)。去年它的企業(yè)金融服務(wù)部門擁有約3000家顧客，并承諾借出8億美元。

　　(16) 不只貸款業(yè)務(wù)遭到夾攻，銀行還有存款流失的危機。過去三年，美國人自低收益的銀行戶頭提出超過5000億的現(xiàn)款，投入較高收益的投資如共同基金。連聯(lián)邦存款保險公司的每人10萬元存款保險也不再限于僅給與銀行和信用合作社。像Prudential Securities 這樣的經(jīng)紀(jì)行所提供的“保障收入賬戶”都有核對優(yōu)先權(quán)與政府保險。

　　(17) 幾家銀行已經(jīng)大張旗鼓地要奪回企業(yè)貸款市場。今年春天美國第三大的Chemical 銀行以該行空前的大手筆展開一項促銷攻勢，企圖吸引中小企業(yè)上門。1800名貸款人員，包括總經(jīng)理Walter Shipley 與董事長John McGillicuddy, 在五個州逐一拜訪5000家企業(yè)。Chemical 的中級市場貸款部主管 Frank Lourenso說：“我擔(dān)心華爾街企業(yè)和投資銀行來搶市場嗎？當(dāng)然！它們是真正的玩家，而我很嚴(yán)肅地看待它們。但是我們將非常主動地爭取新的企業(yè)主顧。”

　　(18) 這樣的雄心在上個月得到政府的肯定。聯(lián)邦儲備委員會批準(zhǔn)Chemical 銀行銷售及承銷公司債券。通常，根據(jù)1933年的Glass Steagall法案，商業(yè)銀行是不準(zhǔn)從事此類投資銀行業(yè)務(wù)的。但是聯(lián)邦儲備理事會引用該法案的漏洞，而它的決定讓某些銀行可以直接向華爾街挑戰(zhàn)，來爭取企業(yè)主顧。

　　(19) 讓銀行自此種大蕭條時期訂下的枷鎖中完全解放出來，也許是讓銀行業(yè)20年來結(jié)構(gòu)性衰退起死回生的唯一方法。但是國會一直堅決反對這樣做。這樣廣泛的改革也未出現(xiàn)在克林頓總統(tǒng)的議事日程中。但是如果不做這些改革，一度在美國金融地圖上比較顯眼的銀行業(yè)，恐將持續(xù)地失去可見度。