In a fair and efficient economic system, lending to the poor must be supported by the government's guiding policies or corresponding fiscal and taxation policies. If banks are determined to participate in such actions, they will definitely leave these contributions to small and medium-sized banks and community banks through market segmentation, and these banks will also mainly support the poor's entrepreneurial and development loan needs in accordance with commercial principles.
So far, many experts who study banking problems all over the world have not found sufficient evidence that "supporting the poor is more cost-effective than supporting the rich", but those conceptual economists have raised the problem of meeting the loan needs of poor entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises to the theoretical height of "fairness, justice and equal development opportunities for everyone".
We often talk about structural adjustment, which not only refers to the adjustment of industrial products and ownership structure, but also includes the adjustment of income structure and financing structure. In fact, it is a concrete action to adjust the income structure and financing structure to give the poor business loans and adequate financing support to small and medium-sized enterprises.
In the practice of reform and opening-up in the past 28 years, we have encountered three intractable contradictions: (1) China's overall economy has developed rapidly, but the income of the members of the whole society in the distribution of wealth is extremely unbalanced.
The gap between the rich and the poor tends to widen; (2) Endogenous savings surplus, which is manifested in the ultra-high growth of urban and rural residents' savings (above 16% per year) and the accelerated accumulation of foreign exchange reserves, which is in sharp contrast to the serious shortage of county economy, small and medium-sized enterprises, especially rural financial services; (3) The reform of the banking system itself is further intensified, and the systemic risk is getting lower and lower, but the inefficient operation with excess liquidity as its content is becoming more and more prominent.
For the widening gap between the rich and the poor, some economists simply boil it down to a formulation: "giving priority to efficiency and giving consideration to fairness", which makes the policy priorities of governments at all levels deviate. This is obviously inconsistent with reality. China's economy is in a transitional period, and the biggest drawback of the planned economy system is that it suppresses the market, loses efficiency, and all members of society are taking a road of poverty. Under such a specific background, the proposal of "giving priority to efficiency and giving consideration to fairness" is actually a historical progress, and the meaning behind this proposal is that "development is the last word". For an economy, the first thing to do is to develop the economy and make a big pie of national income. The more wealthy people can participate in the distribution, the easier it is to deal with contradictions in all aspects. Under the condition of market economy, giving priority to efficiency is an irreplaceable basic law. Giving consideration to fairness is not simply robbing the rich to help the poor, but letting everyone have the freedom to enter the market and participate in competition, that is, first of all, achieving equal opportunities and fair opportunities. To put an end to unfairness as much as possible means to prevent a few people from taking advantage of their power in economic operation, to oppose corruption and waste in all fields of society, and to make appropriate institutional arrangements for the opportunities of socially disadvantaged groups in education, employment and entrepreneurship. This is the true essence of fairness.
The relative surplus of endogenous savings and the surplus of liquidity in the banking system are two problems, one is divided into two, and the other is divided into two. It reflects the dysfunction of China's financial system in dredging the cycle of savings and investment. China's financing system is dominated by indirect bank financing. Up to now, the ratio of indirect financing to direct financing is roughly 10: 2, and a large number of financial resources have been redistributed by banks. In the banking system, the four major banks of workers, peasants and China Construction have an absolute advantage. These four banks not only have the institutional defects of state-owned enterprises, but also have the characteristics of "X- inefficiency" put forward by economist Leibenstein of Harvard University. For example, since 1998, the regulatory authorities have taken reducing the NPL ratio by at least 3 percentage points every year as an important indicator to assess the managers of various banks, and the widespread situation in all banks is the collection of credit business power, and the lifelong accountability system for bad loans also makes the grass-roots bank presidents willing to hand over the loan power.
Under the system of four business levels (sub-branch-secondary branch-primary branch-head office), two effects have naturally formed: one is the "siphon effect" on the source of funds, that is, the deposits absorbed by grass-roots institutions are handed over layer by layer and concentrated in the head office; Second, the "toothpaste crowding out effect" in the credit business, that is, the loan power of the grass-roots branches is getting smaller and smaller, and the customer loan applications reported by the superior banks are approved and resolved step by step. The result of these two effects is that the credit business efficiency of big banks is getting lower and lower, while the excess liquidity is becoming more and more obvious.
Now, we see that some big banks have proposed to attach importance to the development of SME loan business, but big banks are doomed to fail in this business. In order to truly promote the loan business of small and medium-sized enterprises nationwide, we must build a new institutional platform to solve it. For example, the examination and approval of county economy and rural lending institutions can be liberalized, and private capital can freely set up microfinance institutions as long as it does not absorb deposits. Another example is the sub-branches below the county level established by workers and peasants, which can be handed over to local governments through overall restructuring and transformed into local community banks.
In addition, in order to cooperate with the reform of the credit market, some economically developed areas can also try to set up an over-the-counter market, allowing those high-growth enterprises to issue shares circulating in the local stock market, providing direct financing facilities for innovative SMEs, and so on.
In short, it is not difficult to solve the problem of loans and financing for SMEs. The key is whether we can emancipate our minds and broaden our thinking.