Bill financing rebounded sharply. /kloc-in June of 0/9, corporate loans increased by more than 800 billion year-on-year, of which bill financing increased by 480 billion year-on-year. The marginal improvement of bill financing began at 17, and the monthly increment of bill financing of150 billion yuan not only made up for the year-on-year shrinkage of general loans, but also supported the overall expansion of corporate loans. At the same time of the high growth of bill financing, the discount rate of bills has been declining since the second quarter of last year.

How to finance commercial bills? Bill financing, as its name implies, takes place around bills. In practice, the billing company usually pays the deposit to the bank to obtain the bank acceptance bill for payment. Enterprises holding bills of exchange can choose to hold them at maturity, or obtain funds in advance by endorsement, transfer and discount. If the bank obtains the bill, it can also choose to repost the bill to other banks, or directly apply to the central bank for rediscount to obtain the discounted face capital. The financing brought by bills can be divided into two processes. First of all, enterprises generate credit when issuing bills, forming undiscounted bank acceptance bills, which belong to off-balance-sheet financing of banks. 18 Since the second half of the year, the year-on-year decline of undiscounted bank acceptance bills has gradually narrowed and turned positive. With the substantial increase in bill financing, the scale of undiscounted bills has also rebounded, reflecting the substantial increase in the scale of bills withdrawn by enterprises. Secondly, when enterprises "discount" bills to commercial banks, they form "bill financing" issued by banks, which is reflected in the bank's balance sheet and included in loans as bill financing.

Characteristics of bill financing. For small and medium-sized enterprises, bill financing has low cost and strong availability. Compared with the higher threshold and cost of general loans, listing and issuing bonds, private and small and medium-sized enterprises have the advantages of lower cost, convenient procedures and strong availability through bill financing. On the one hand, bill acceptance can reduce the occupation of working capital and is an important way for small and medium-sized enterprises to carry out short-term financing. /kloc-in 0/8, bank acceptance bills issued by small and medium-sized enterprises accounted for about two-thirds of the total scale. On the other hand, enterprises holding bills of exchange can also obtain funds at a lower bill financing interest rate when discounting. After the second quarter of 18, the interest rate of bill financing fell sharply, which was more obvious than that of ordinary loans, partially replacing short-term loans. The central bank policy also guides financial institutions to support private and small and micro enterprises to raise funds through bills. 18, the central bank raised the rediscount amount of refinancing three times, and encouraged financial institutions to support private enterprises and small and micro enterprises through bill discount. In addition, for commercial banks, bill acceptance is an off-balance-sheet business, while bill discount is transferred from off-balance-sheet to on-balance-sheet business, which can help adjust the credit line.

What does the high bill increase mean to enterprises? (1) helps to improve short-term liquidity, mainly in two aspects: First, enterprises can issue bills for payment, which can solve the problem of corporate accounts. Bills are usually associated with sales, trade and other businesses of enterprises. By issuing an acceptance bill, an enterprise repays at maturity, which is equivalent to "deferred payment". Since 18, the profit growth rate of enterprises has dropped sharply, which has dragged down the liquidity of enterprises and lengthened the payback period of accounts receivable. Speeding up the issuance and circulation of bills is helpful to solve the problem of enterprise account arrears. Second, enterprises can obtain funds to maintain their operations by discounting the bills they hold, thus alleviating the short-term debt pressure. In 18, the growth rate of cash outflow from corporate financing activities is much higher than that of inflow, and enterprises can obtain lower-cost bill financing by discounting bills held by banks, which is helpful to alleviate short-term liquidity tension and stabilize the growth rate of M 1. However, there is also the possibility of arbitrage behind the new bill financing, the most typical of which is arbitrage through structured deposits and bill discount. Recently, however, government departments have also noticed the phenomenon of idle funds and started to strengthen supervision. We expect arbitrage to be unsustainable in the future. (2) Long-term credit expansion still needs to wait. As far as its own function is concerned, the high growth of bill-related financing is mainly to improve the short-term liquidity of enterprises, but its contribution to enterprise investment expansion and economic stabilization and recovery is limited. The high growth of bill financing has crowded out the credit line, which means that the credit demand is not strong and the credit line is abundant. Judging from its signal significance, the downward trend of bill financing interest rate is usually 2-3 quarters earlier than that of general loan interest rate. Last year, the central bank maintained ample liquidity and further dredged the interest rate transmission mechanism. By the fourth quarter, the general loan interest rate also began to decline, indicating that the policy interest rate is gradually being transmitted to the market interest rate and credit interest rate. With the gradual emergence of the effects of various credit measures, the stabilization of social integration in the future will be closer and closer.

On June 5438+ 10, the growth rate of social financing rebounded obviously, and the substantial growth of bill financing attracted people's attention. What is the significance of bill financing to enterprise liquidity? Does its high growth mean the re-expansion of credit, or is it driven by idling arbitrage? This paper will analyze this.

1。 Bill financing rebounded sharply.

19 19 social financing and credit have increased greatly, and a very important contribution comes from bill financing. 19 June, social financing increased by10.56 trillion yuan, and corporate loans increased by more than 800 billion yuan, of which bill financing increased by 480 billion yuan. The marginal improvement of bill financing began in 20 17. In June of that year, the scale of bill financing decreased by more than 400 billion yuan, and then the decline gradually narrowed, and it turned into positive growth in August of that year. In 20 18, the scale of new bill financing has been rising all the way, with an average monthly increase of more than150 billion yuan, and banks have continuously increased the amount of bill discount loans.

Bill financing drives the scale of corporate loans to rise. As a way of short-term loans for enterprises, since the second quarter of 18, the increase of bill financing has led to the expansion of the total scale of new enterprise loans. In 18, the total scale of new corporate loans reached 8.28 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.58 trillion yuan compared with 17, while bill financing increased by 3.48 trillion yuan year-on-year, which not only made up for the year-on-year contraction of general loans in 18, but also supported the overall expansion of corporate loans.

At the same time of the high growth of bill financing, the discount rate of bills has dropped sharply. Since the second quarter of last year, the central bank has started several rounds of RRR interest rate cuts. Under the background of abundant liquidity, continuous downward interest rate of funds and abundant bank credit lines, the discount rate of bills also began to decline in the second quarter of last year. By the end of 18, the bill financing interest rate had dropped 174BP from the high point at the end of 18.

2。 How to finance commercial bills?

2. 1 What is a commercial bill?

Bill financing, as its name implies, takes place around bills. Bill is a kind of commercial certificate, which mainly refers to the securities issued by the drawer and paid to the holder by the payer on the specified date or after seeing the bill. According to the provisions of China's Negotiable Instruments Law, narrow bills are mainly divided into checks, cashier's checks and drafts. According to whether the drawer is a bank or not, bills of exchange can be divided into bank bills and commercial bills. In the traditional sense, the bill market refers to the commercial bill market, that is, the entrusted payer issued by an enterprise unconditionally pays a certain amount of bills to the payee or holder on a specified date, and the "bill" of "bill financing" also refers to commercial bills.

At present, bank acceptance bills account for more than 80% of commercial bills. Commercial bills need to have a real commodity trading background. According to whether the acceptor is a bank, commercial bills can be further subdivided into bank acceptance bills and commercial acceptance bills. Because the payment ability of banks is stronger than that of enterprises, the credit risk of bank acceptance bills is far less than that of commercial acceptance bills, so it has become the main force in the bill market. According to the statistics of Shanghai Bills Exchange, as of June 20 19, the balance of bank acceptance bills was 10.8 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 80%, while the balance of commercial acceptance bills was 2.2 trillion yuan.

In practice, the billing company usually pays the deposit to the bank to obtain the bank acceptance bill for payment. For example, suppose that enterprise A has a goods transaction with enterprise B, but enterprise A does not have enough funds, then enterprise A can make a deposit with the bank, and then apply for a bank acceptance bill to be paid to enterprise B. Because the bill is endorsed by the bank, enterprise B recognizes that enterprise A pays for the goods with the bill, and this bill becomes the asset of enterprise B. ..

Enterprises holding bills of exchange can choose to hold them at maturity, or obtain funds in advance by endorsement, transfer and discount. After obtaining the bill, enterprise B can choose to keep it and obtain the face value of the bill at the agreed time. Of course, if enterprise B is in urgent need of funds, it can also choose to transfer the endorsement of bills to enterprise C in the bill market, or find a bank to obtain discounted funds at a certain discount rate in advance. If the bank obtains the bill, it can also choose to repost the bill to other banks, or directly apply to the central bank for rediscount to obtain the discounted face capital.

2.2 Off-balance sheet and on-balance sheet financing of bills

The financing brought by bills can be divided into two processes.

First of all, credit occurs when an enterprise issues a bill (called "acceptance"), forming an undiscounted bank acceptance bill, which belongs to the off-balance sheet financing of the bank. Enterprise A draws a draft to pay for the goods, which is actually equivalent to the bank providing a credit financing to enterprise A. For enterprise A, the book capital has not changed, and the bill has been paid, which is equivalent to financing from the bank and repaying it before the bill expires. For banks, before discounting, banks did not actually pay bills, but they provided off-balance-sheet non-standard financing to enterprises.

18 Since the second half of the year, the year-on-year decline of undiscounted bank acceptance bills has gradually narrowed and turned positive. The new scale of undiscounted bank acceptance bills under non-standard financing began to shrink gradually from-360 billion yuan in June 18 to more than 100 billion yuan in February/8. In the case of a substantial increase in bill financing, the scale of undiscounted bills has also rebounded, reflecting that the scale of bills withdrawn by enterprises has also increased substantially.

Secondly, when enterprises "discount" bills to commercial banks, "bill financing" issued by banks is formed. Enterprises discount bills to banks, and banks pay corresponding funds to the discounted enterprises, which are reflected in the bank's balance sheet, thus leading to the transfer of financing from the bank's off-balance sheet to the on-balance sheet and being included in loans as bill financing.

Credit creation occurred from the issuance of bills, and the subsequent bill circulation process only led to the change of credit financing structure, but did not change the scale of credit creation. For example, enterprises apply to banks for bill discount, and the scale of bill financing increases, but at the same time, the scale of undiscounted acceptance bills also decreases accordingly. If banks apply to the central bank for rediscount with bills, it will lead to the central bank putting base money into banks and increasing the money supply. However, the bill endorsement transfer between enterprises or the bill transfer between banks will not cause financing changes.

3。 Characteristics of bill financing

Bill financing has low cost and strong availability, which is especially convenient for small and medium-sized enterprises. Compared with the higher threshold and cost of general loans, listing and issuing bonds, private and small and medium-sized enterprises have the advantages of lower cost, convenient procedures and strong availability through bill financing.

On the one hand, bill acceptance can reduce the occupation of working capital, so issuing bills of exchange is an important way for SMEs to carry out short-term financing. /kloc-in 0/8, bank acceptance bills issued by small and medium-sized enterprises accounted for about two-thirds of the total scale. On the other hand, enterprises holding bills can also obtain funds at a lower bill financing interest rate through discount, thus alleviating the shortage of funds. Especially after the second quarter of 18, the interest rate of bill financing dropped sharply, which was more obvious than that of ordinary loans, showing the substitution of short-term ordinary loans with the same term of 1 year. 65438+Since May 2008, the scale of bill financing has increased substantially, with an average monthly increase of more than 200 billion yuan, while short-term loans have been negative for many months.

In addition to the characteristics of bills themselves, central bank policies also guide financial institutions to support private and small and micro enterprises to finance through bills. /kloc-In June, June and February of 0/8, the central bank increased the rediscount amount of refinancing for three times, and the rediscount was realized by commercial banks discounting commercial bills to the central bank. In fact, financial institutions are also encouraged to support private enterprises and small and micro enterprises through bill discounting, especially 18 saw a substantial increase in rediscount in the fourth quarter, and 18 saw financial institutions at the end of this year.

For commercial banks, bill acceptance is an off-balance sheet business, while bill discount is transferred from off-balance sheet to on-balance sheet. Therefore, by increasing or decreasing the discount, it can help to adjust the credit line and meet the regulatory assessment requirements at a specific time. If there is a strong demand for credit in the market, banks will tend to reduce the discount of bills, thus leaving room for general loans with higher interest rates. If the credit demand is weak, credit impulse can be realized by increasing bill financing. Historically, the scale of new bills is also inversely proportional to the demand trend of loans.

Since the second quarter of 18, credit demand has been weakening, and 19 1 month originally coincided with the seasonal peak at the beginning of the year. In addition, under the downward trend of interest rates, financial institutions are more inclined to "invest early and earn early". It is not surprising that 1 month credit grows rapidly, especially when bill financing can facilitate small and medium-sized enterprises, and banks are now more inclined to bill financing.

4。 What does the high bill increase mean to enterprises?

4. 1 helps to improve short-term liquidity.

From the above characteristics, we can easily find that the role of bills in enterprises is mainly reflected in two aspects:

First, enterprises can issue bills for payment, which can solve the problem of enterprise accounts. Bills are usually associated with sales, trade and other businesses of enterprises. By issuing an acceptance bill, an enterprise repays at maturity, which is equivalent to "deferred payment". Since 18, the demand has weakened, and the profit growth rate of enterprises has dropped sharply, which has dragged down the liquidity of enterprises and led to a corresponding extension of the payback period of accounts receivable. Therefore, speeding up the issuance and circulation of bills will help solve the problem of arrears in corporate accounts and prevent the further spread of capital shortage.

Second, enterprises can obtain funds to maintain their operations by discounting the bills they hold, thus alleviating the short-term debt pressure. Our previous report, Enterprise Mobility: What's the Problem? It has been analyzed that the biggest change in the cash flow of 18 enterprise is that the net cash flow of financing activities has dropped sharply, and the growth rate of cash outflow from financing activities is much higher than that of inflow. However, if such enterprises hold bills, they can obtain low-cost bill financing by discounting them to banks, which is conducive to alleviating short-term liquidity tension and actually plays the role of borrowing new ones to repay old ones and avoiding default.

Therefore, in the environment of declining profits and tight credit, undiscounted acceptance bills and bill financing have indeed played a role in reducing the occupation of book funds and alleviating the credit contraction, which can improve the short-term liquidity of enterprises and help the M 1, which continued to decline last year, gradually stabilize.

Of course, new bill financing may not be used for production and operation or debt repayment, and there is the possibility of arbitrage behind it, the most typical of which is arbitrage through structured deposits and bill discount. The discount rate of bills is highly marketized, which is highly consistent with the interest rate trend in the interbank market. In the second half of last year, the inter-bank market interest rate dropped sharply. When the bill discount rate was lower than the structured deposit yield, as long as the spread between the two could cover the related expenses, theoretically, enterprises could achieve arbitrage through the operation of "purchasing structured deposit products-pledge invoicing-discount by ticket".

However, arbitrage also has costs. Enterprises need trade contracts, invoices and other supporting materials to issue bills of exchange, and there are certain fraud costs and regulatory risks in false trade. Moreover, the interest rate of structured deposits is not always higher than the discount of bills, and the emergence of arbitrage opportunities is unstable; In addition, government departments have recently noticed the phenomenon of arbitrage and idle funds, and began to strengthen supervision. We expect that bill financing with complete idling arbitrage will be unsustainable in the future.

4.2 Long-term credit expansion still needs to wait.

Bill financing only accounts for about 3% of the social financing stock, and it is only a short-term loan. Whether credit can really expand depends on other major projects such as medium and long-term loans and bonds. The funds obtained by bill financing often correspond to the daily operation and debt repayment activities of enterprises, and its high growth does not mean that the enterprise sector restarts credit expansion. Only when the medium and long-term loans corresponding to the investment expenditure of enterprises are also improved, will the credit begin to expand, and the economy will hopefully stabilize or even rebound again. In fact, general short-term loans and medium-and long-term loans also increased in June 5438+ 10, especially the year-on-year increase of the latter was the first time in the past six months. However, considering the year-on-year decline of medium and long-term loans of enterprises in the same period of 18, the sustainability of the increase of medium and long-term loans still needs to be observed.

However, from the historical growth rate, the growth rate of bill financing is often ahead of the growth rate of social financing. The reason behind it is that bill financing reflects the trend of interest rate and is the first step to dredge wide credit. The interest rate of bill financing has a high degree of marketization. The high increment of bill financing and the substitution of general short-term loans are accompanied by the rapid expansion of the spread between general loans and bill financing, which usually occurs when the interest rate in the interbank market drops sharply and the loan interest rate fails to keep up.

Therefore, to sum up, the high growth of bill-related financing has its positive side, but there is no need to over-interpret it. As far as its own function is concerned, the high growth of bills is mainly to improve the short-term liquidity of enterprises and help alleviate the problem of capital shortage. However, in terms of volume and investment, its contribution to enterprise investment expansion and economic stabilization and recovery is relatively limited. The high growth of bill financing has crowded out the credit line, which itself means that the credit demand is not strong and the credit line is abundant.

Judging from its signal significance, although the high growth of bill financing does not mean that wide credit has appeared, historical experience shows that the decline of bill financing interest rate is usually 2-3 quarters earlier than that of general loan interest rate. Last year, the central bank maintained sufficient liquidity and further dredged the interest rate transmission mechanism. By the fourth quarter, the general loan interest rate also began to decline, indicating that the policy interest rate is gradually being transmitted to the market interest rate and credit interest rate. With the gradual emergence of the effects of various credit measures, the stabilization of social integration in the future will be closer and closer.