Tracking China's Consumers
With Chinese rushing in ever-greater numbers to buy on credit, banks and businesses are making their own dash into the credit-reporting industry.
With loans available to purchase everything from cars to homes to computers to a college education, growth in consumer lending has kept to a pace of about 50% in each of the past two years, far faster than the annual rise in total bank lending. In 2003, personal-credit lending totaled 1.56 trillion yuan, ($188.5 billion) more than 4.5 times the 2000 level. International companies are seeking to get in: China recently gave initial approval for General Motors Corp. and two other multinationals to offer auto financing, while credit-card giants such as Visa USA Inc. International and MasterCard International Inc. also are eyeing the market.
The problem is that without a national credit bureau or credit-check industry, lenders often know almost nothing about their borrowers. That has contributed to high default rates for both auto and student loans, now estimated to be as high as 30% in some areas of China, industry executives say. The trend threatens to generate a new round of nonperforming loans for China's state banks, already reeling under nearly $400 billion of bad debt.
Now, some banks and companies are setting up their own credit-check systems, either for their own use or to sell to others. The Beijing Bankers Association gathers data on auto loans each month from 16 member banks, including the Beijing branches of the four major state-run commercial banks, and disseminates to them information on loan defaults. It is working on a similar "blacklist" for mortgage loans. Alibaba.com, an Internet company with two business-to-business sites, offers credit information about potential partners for a small annual fee. The government-backed Beijing Credit Bureau Co. has compiled a credit-rating database that includes general background information on more than two million individuals, along with records of their monthly phone-bill payments.
Some foreign firms have entered the market. Smartclub, a U.S. company, is collecting consumer-behavior data in Shanghai as it offers stored-value cards that let members score points with purchases at various retailers; the points can be redeemed for gifts. Michael Lu, Smartclub's director of member services, says a goal is to "build a strong consumer database with information that can infer credit history."
The nascent industry faces many challenges, the biggest being that China has no laws that require banks to share credit information with regulators or each other. China's central bank is drafting a law that would require such sharing. Its recently established Credit Management Bureau is setting up a national credit-rating system initially covering 300 million people, but one central banker privately admits that without a law, "it's very hard to do."
Wu Bo, general manager of the Beijing Credit Bureau Co., agrees. He says his company's database contains only "a little information" about auto and home loans. "That's our biggest problem," he says. "It is too difficult to get credit information from banks now. Without personal credit information from banks and other financial-services providers, we cannot set up a real credit-rating database."
Another problem is that none of the systems set up have a national scope, and even achieving complete coverage on a citywide basis is difficult. Take the Shanghai Credit Information Services Co., a credit bureau set up by the central bank's Shanghai branch in 2000 that serves as a model for other Chinese cities. The bureau is linked to every bank branch in China's largest city, including foreign-owned ones. It requires commercial banks to plug into the system and update information each day, so loan officers at one institution can spot another bank's delinquent customers. The bureau gathers both "positive" credit data, such as who has applied for a loan or credit card, and "negative" data, such as who has stopped mortgage payments.
Shanghai's system is slowly being connected with those of other cities, but the links are tenuous at best. In fact, Shanghai's system still doesn't even cover all districts in the metropolis.
China UnionPay Co., a shareholding consortium set up by more than 80 Chinese financial institutions in 2002, has ambitions to go nationwide. The company, whose main business is to run an information system that enables cross-banking transactions for credit and debit cards, plans to unveil a national credit-rating database around midyear, a company executive says. The company is signing bilateral agreements with banks in various cities to provide personal-credit information to the company free of charge.
For now, the absence of any national credit-check systems makes it easy for people who default to go to another province -- or even a bank in the same city -- to obtain another loan. Some banks, after trying fruitlessly to chase down deadbeat borrowers to get their money back, are resorting to publicly embarrassing them. In November, a branch of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China in the northern city of Shijiazhuang placed an advertisement in a local newspaper identifying 20 people who it said hadn't repaid loans.
One of those on the list was Mandy, a 20-something teacher who asked to be identified only by her English name. She says she had taken out a 200,000 yuan (about $24,300) loan on behalf of her brother in 2001, to cover two-thirds of the cost of his new Volkswagen sedan.
She forgot about it until April 2003, when the bank started asking her to repay the loan. Her brother had failed to make the monthly payments for most of 2003 and the bank seized the car. Nonetheless, says Mandy, "I hope to buy my own car and an apartment in the future. I will try a different bank; it should be no matter there."
消费信贷令中国急需信用审核体系
当人们参观中国亚飞汽车集团公司(Yafun Automobiles Group)的产品展示厅时，他们可以挑选自己中意的新车型，并申请汽车贷款。接下来就是亚飞汽车来审核购车人的贷款资质了，不过，手段却只有做家访。
在家访时，亚飞汽车的员工要了解贷款申请人是单身还是已婚，是自己拥有住房还是租住别人的房子，他们同时还收集贷款申请人的其他个人信息。亚飞汽车依据收集到的数据对贷款申请人进行风险评级，然后将该申请人的信息输入公司刚刚成型的信用评级数据库，在此后的日子里他们再把收集到的贷款申请人总的贷款偿还纪录逐渐补充到数据库中。 亚飞汽车集团公司的董事长郭基元说，信贷管理是中国当前最大的问题。郭基元和业内分析师们说，亚飞汽车环环相扣的信用评级系统帮助公司实现了中国汽车贷款业最低的贷款拖欠率。但郭基元对他的数据库寄予了更大期望，他说，其他企业为了利用这一数据库将不得不与亚飞汽车合作。
随著中国人迅速接受了贷款购物这一理念，银行和商家对信用审核服务的需求激增。在今天的中国，从汽车、住房到个人电脑，甚至大学教育，几乎所有的东西都可通过贷款来购买，过去两年中，消费贷款的增长速度每年都达到50%左右，远高于银行总体贷款的年增幅。
2003年的个人贷款总额为人民币1.56万亿元（合1,885亿美元），超过了2000年水平的4.5倍。跨国公司也跃跃欲试。中国最近初步批准了通用汽车公司(General Motors Corp.)和其他两家跨国公司在华开展汽车融资业务，而威士美国(Visa USA Inc.)和万事达卡国际组织(Mastercard International Inc.)等信用卡巨头也在觊觎中国市场。
现在的问题是，由于缺乏全国性的征信管理机构和信用审核业，贷款机构对借款人的情况经常一无所知。这导致汽车和助学贷款的拖欠率很高，业内管理人士称，在中国某些地区这类贷款的拖欠比率估计高达30%。对于已身背近4,000亿美元不良贷款的中国国有银行来说，这一趋势有可能引发新一轮的不良贷款潮。
目前，一些银行和公司正在建立自己的信用审核体系，或自用或向他人出售。北京银行业协会(Beijing Bankers Association)每月都从其包括四大国有商业银行北京分行在内的16家会员银行那里收集有关汽车贷款的数据，然后向这些会员银行发布贷款拖欠信息。北京银行业协会也在为住房按揭贷款业务准备类似的"黑名单"。
拥有两个企业对企业(business-to-business)网站的互联网公司阿里巴巴(Alibaba.com)为其登记注册用户提供了一项服务，用户只需交纳少量年费就可得到关于其潜在合作伙伴的信用信息。具政府背景的北京信用管理有限公司(Beijing Credit Bureau Co.)已编制了一个信用评级数据库，除包括200多万个人的一般性背景信息外，还包括这些人每个月支付电话费的纪录等。
一些外国公司也进入了这一市场。智买道(Smartclub)这家美国公司正在上海收集有关消费者行为的数据，它向其会员提供储值卡，会员在某些零售店购物时可积累点数。当点数积累到一定量时可凭它换取礼物。智买道会员服务部门的负责人Michael Lu说，此举的目的就是建立一个庞大的消费者数据库，使人可以从中了解会员的信用历史。
中国初生的信用审核业面临许多挑战，最大的困难是中国没有法律要求银行需与政府监管机构或在彼此间分享其信用信息。中国的央行正在起草一部法律，该法律将要求分享这类信息。中国央行刚刚组建的征信管理局(Credit management bureau)正在建立全国性的信用评级系统，该系统初步将覆盖300万人口，但一位央行官员私下承认，如果没有相关的配套法律，很难开展工作。
北京信用管理有限公司的总经理吴波同意这一观点。他说，北京信用管理公司的数据库仅包括汽车和住房贷款方面的少量信息，信息不足是公司面临的最大问题，现在从银行那里获取信用信息太困难了。吴波说，银行不愿意与别人分享其信用信息，而如果没有来自银行和其他金融服务提供商的个人信用信息，公司无法真正建立一个信用评级数据库。
另一个问题是，中国目前还没有一个信用评级系统是全国性的，甚至要想使一个信用评级系统覆盖整个城市也是困难重重。这种情况从上海资信有限公司(Shanghai Credit Information Services Co.)的经历可见一斑。该公司是由央行上海分行在2000年建立的一家征信管理机构，它的任务之一就是为中国其他城市设立类似机构提供借鉴。该公司位于一家英国制药公司以前用过的办公楼，它希望与中国各大城市的每一家银行分支机构都有联系，包括外资银行。它要求各商业银行都加入其信用评级系统，并且每天都要更新提供给该系统的信息，以便某家金融机构的贷款审核员可以知道谁在其他银行拖欠了贷款。上海资信公司既收集"正面的"的信用数据，如谁申请了一笔贷款或办了一张信用卡，也收集"负面的"数据，如谁停止了按揭贷款的偿付等。
上海的信用评级系统正缓慢地与中国其他城市的这类系统连接起来。但这种联系渠道最多也只能称做尚未断掉而已。事实上，上海的这一信用评级系统甚至没能覆盖到该市所有的行政区。上海资信公司称，原因之一是在上海的某些区域，数十户家庭合住一幢房子，他们先统一向公用事业公司交纳一笔电费，然后各家私下里再分摊这一费用。这使得上海资信公司难以像其他国家那样通过分析公用事业公司提供的信息来追踪每个家庭的信用历史。
上海资信公司在信息共享方面最密切的合作伙伴包括中国的各家移动电话公司。在中国，移动电话帐户可能比银行存款帐户更普遍，而该国的移动电话用户最近已超过了固定电话用户。因此，要了解谁在按时支付帐单，谁在拖欠服务费，移动电话运营商有可能成为这方面信息的最丰富来源。上海资信公司还与众多专业组织建立了合作关系。例如，它从上海的法律和医学社团得到的会员信息可以帮助银行判断某位贷款申请人是否真是一位医生。
总部位于上海的中国银联股份有限公司(China Unionpay Co.)是由中国80多家金融机构于2002年发起成立的，它的目标是将业务扩展到全国各地。该公司的主要业务是运营一个使信用卡和转帐卡可以跨行结算的信息系统，据一位管理人士称，公司计划在今年年中前后推出一个全国性的信用评级数据库。该公司正在与中国各城市的银行签署双边协议，根据协议，各银行将免费向该公司提供个人信用信息。上述那位管理人士说，中国银联开展这项工作是为了使各家金融机构从中受益，不是为了盈利。
目前，全国性信用审核机构的缺乏使得人们易于在拖欠一笔贷款的同时又可从另一省份、甚至同一城市的另一家银行得到另一笔贷款。一些银行在与赖债不还的借款人反复交涉而终无结果后，只好选择公开信息以使这些人感到难堪。去年11月，中国工商银行(Industrial & Commercial Bank of China)在北方城市石家庄的一家分支机构在当地报纸上刊登广告，点了20个贷款拖欠人的名，同时还公布了其顾主的名字。
曼蒂(Mandy)就是上了这一贷款拖欠人名单的一位，身为教师的曼蒂要求只提及她的英文名。曼蒂说，她2001年时替哥哥从银行借了20万元，用以支付她哥哥购买一辆大众牌轿车所需的三分之二费用。
曼蒂随后就将自己从银行贷款一事忘得一干二净，直到2003年4月接到银行的电话，才知道她哥哥2003年大部分时间都未按月偿还贷款，而现在银行要求曼蒂来偿还这笔贷款。曼蒂的哥哥对她说，他的商业伙伴欠他的钱，而那辆汽车也被银行收回了。曼蒂说，她希望今后能购买自己的汽车和住房，届时她将向另外一家银行申请贷款，预计在那家银行不会遇到什么麻烦。
