The third anniversary of LPR reform: Breaking the hidden limit of loan interest rates to the lower limit of the company's financing costs continued to decline

Author:Securities daily Time:2022.08.22

Reporter Liu Qi

The reform of the loan market quotation interest rate (LPR) has ushered in the third anniversary and has achieved remarkable results.

In August 2019, the People's Bank of China (hereinafter referred to as the "central bank") reform and improved the LPR formation mechanism. Three years have passed, and in the opinion of CITIC Securities Chief Economist, the LPR reform has formed a good policy interest rate transmission mechanism, reduced the cost of financing in the real economy, and effectively exerts the function of policy support the real economy.

Interest rate conduction mechanism is further opened up

The marketization of interest rates is one of the core reforms in the economic and financial field. After three years of continuous advancement, LPR reform has achieved important results.

Liang Si, a researcher at the Bank of China Research Institute, said in an interview with the Securities Daily that before the LPR reform, the benchmark interest rate of loan pricing deposits and loans had a greater impact and low marketization. But after the reform, the loan pricing mainly refers to LPR. LPR is formed to add points for MLF, and the loan interest rate refers to LPR plus points. MLF is formed for market bidding. The addition is determined by the quotation bank and various banks, and the degree of marketization is higher.

At the same time, Liang Si said that since the LPR reform, the interest rate conduction mechanism has been further opened, and the interest rate system of policy interest rate (MLF) → market benchmark interest rate (LPR) → market interest rate (loan interest rate) conduction has been basically established. Financial institutions have continued to decline with LPR interest rates, and the lower limit of hidden loan interest rates has also been broken. In the past three years, corporate financing costs have continuously reached a record low, and LPR reform has effectively supported the development of the real economy.

According to central bank data, the LPR quotation in July was: the 1 -year LPR was 3.7%, and the LPR of more than 5 years was 4.45%, which was 0.55 percentage points and 0.4 percentage points from the first quotation after the LPR reform. The LPR downlink has driven a significant decrease in corporate loan interest rates, which effectively promotes the financial concessions of the financial to the real economy. According to the "China Monetary Policy Implementation Report in the Second quarter of 2022" issued by the central bank a few days ago, the average interest rate of corporate loans in June was 4.16%, compared with compared with 5.32%in July 2019 decreased by 1.16 percentage points in July 2019.

Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at the Everbright Bank Financial Market Department, said in an interview with the Securities Daily that LPR reforms have opened the path of policy interest rates to the real economy, improved the efficiency of monetary policy conduction, and effectively reduced the cost of financing of the real economy.

"LPR has gradually become the main reference benchmark for commercial banks FTP (internal fund transfer pricing), and the degree of marketization of FTP has continued to increase. Driven by the continuous promotion of LPR reform, the scale of derivatives related to LPR is also increasing, including LPR interest rate interchange , Options and other businesses have achieved rapid development. "Liang Si added.

LPR is expected to be lowered this month

In the "China Regional Financial Operation Report (2022)" issued by the central bank in July, the next step should continue to deepen LPR reform, improve the LPR quotation mechanism, and continuously improve the quality of LPR quotation, so that the central bank's policy interest rates to loan interest rates and loan interest rates and loan interest rates and The transmission of deposit interest rates is smoother.

Talking about the grasping point of further deepening LPR reform, Liang Si believes that one is to continue to enhance the linkedness of LPR and MLF, increase the flexibility of MLF adjustment, break the barriers between the financial market and the credit market, strengthen the monetary policy pair The synchronization of bank assets and liabilities; the second is to accelerate the cultivation of the derivative market, accelerate the cultivation of LPR -related derivatives, and better meet the needs of various types of interest rate risk management needs; Bank liability environment. Continue to optimize the price of deposit interest rate pricing mechanisms, enhance the sensitivity of changes in deposit interest rates with market interest rate changes, and better match the change in loan interest rates.

"In order to further release the potential of the LPR quotation interest rate reform, on the one hand, it is necessary to further improve the LPR interest rate transmission mechanism, promote financial institutions to put the LPR interest rate internal financial institutions internal funds pricing models, and at the same time guide small and medium -sized financial institutions Considering that financial institutions adjustment of loan interest rates are restricted by the cost of deposit, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of the deposit market, maintain the normal market competition order, and deepen the market -oriented reform of deposit interest rates. "Zhou Maohua believes.

Obviously to reporters, in the future, it is necessary to consider how to effectively cooperate with the market -oriented adjustment mechanism of deposit interest rates with the LPR reform to further use the policies such as reducing the cost of financing the real economy. In addition, the level of LPR reduction of more than 5 years is relatively small, so how to effectively reduce long -term interest rates in the future may also be a direction for LPR reform.

It is worth mentioning that on August 15th, the central bank's winning interest rates of MLF operations and public market reverse repurchase operations decreased by 10 basis points. Obviously, after the reform and improvement of the LPR formation mechanism, the MLF interest rate has a greater impact on LPR quotation. Considering that the recent decline in the cost of holding storage for banks, the pressure on the debt side will be significantly reduced. See, the LPR reduction space may exceed 10 basis points in August. In addition, the probability of LPR asymmetry is high. In the context of the demand for medium- and long -term loans, the LPR interest rate of the voltage -dropped end LPR will effectively reduce the financing costs of residents and enterprises and improve their willingness to increase leverage.

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