Japanese banking liberalisation
日本银行业的自由化

Knocking down the wall
打破成规

Jul 2nd 2009 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition

Japan eases the rules for banks and their securities affiliates
日本放宽对银行及其证券业务分行的监管

REGULATORS around the world are contemplating higher walls between commercial banks and their investment-banking divisions. In Japan the opposite is happening. Last month the country’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) dramatically eased the regulations on how banks may interact with their securities arms, with sweeping implications for Japan’s financial markets.
就在全世界的监管者都努力在为商业银行及其投资银行分部之间高筑围墙的时候，日本却正在反其道而行之。上个月，日本金融服务厅（FSA）引人注目的放宽了对商业银行如何同其证券业务分行进行合作的监管，这对日本金融市场是一种暗示。

The old system laid huge burdens on financial groups. It prevented bankers from suggesting services that were provided by the same firm but housed in a different unit. Foreign banks, lacking the same holding-company structures as domestic rivals, were the worst hit. Until recently, grouses an employee of a big bank, its Japanese unit generated more paperwork than the rest of its operations across Asia combined. Domestic firms also suffered. And a system designed to minimise risk increased it, says an executive. “If the country manager asks the head of the securities unit, ‘How’s business?’, he can’t say because he is in a different legal entity.”
旧的制度让财团们承受着巨大的负担。它限制银行家提供建议服务，这些服务其实是由同一家公司提供的，但是却分属不同的部门。外资银行由于缺少和其国内竞争者相同的控股公司的架构，更是遭受到严重打击。直到最近，一家大型银行的员工的抱怨这 家银行在日本的分行所产生的书面文件比其在亚洲其他国家的业务部门加起来还多。国内公司也同样深受其害。一项本来用于降低风险的制度却恰恰相反增加了风 险，一位员工说道：“如果银行的区域总经理问证券部门的领导业务怎么样？他根本没有办法回答，因为证券部门属于另外一个法人实体。”

The new rules simplify things. The reform allows employees to work across different units. So support staff can perform tasks for both the banking and securities units, which should increase efficiency, lower costs and improve risk management. It also lets employees cross-sell products, provided that a robust system exists to prevent conflicts of interest. Previously, corporate customers had to opt in to enable the banking group to share client information. Now they must opt out.
新的制度让事情简单了。改革后的制度允许银行员工在各部门之间交叉工作。这样员工可以同时完成银行部门和证券部门的业务，从而提高效率，降低成本，以及提 高风险管理水平。新的制度还允许员工交叉销售金融产品，并且通过有力的制度来预防利益冲突。以前，为了让银行间共享客户信息，企业客户必须参与进来，而现 在，他们则必须退出。

The new responsibility placed on companies to monitor themselves partly explains harsh sanctions that have been handed down by the FSA recently. Hapless Citigroup’s bad run continues: it has been barred from promoting its retail bank in Japan for a month, starting in mid-July, because of inadequate controls on money-laundering. And Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, a huge local bank, was slapped with sanctions for failing to prevent data theft by a fired employee.
新的制度让企业必须肩负起自己监督自己的责任，这也部分解释了为什么FSA最近频频宣布严厉的制裁决定。花旗集团的霉运还在继续：由于对洗钱活动控制不 力，从七月中旬起，花旗集团将被勒令暂停在日本推销其零售银行产品一个月。另一家日本本土银行业巨头，三菱UFJ金融集团，也因为其前员工窃取并出售客户 信息而受到制裁。

The reform is intended to unleash more sophisticated financial products in Japan. Regional lenders and the country’s three “megabanks” exert enormous power over companies. Firms tend to rely on bank loans rather than the capital markets for their financing even though the level has decreased since the 1990s banking crisis (see chart). Japanese firms are three times more reliant on bank lending than American firms are. Relationships that span decades are hard to unwind but even the banks recognise that the capital markets need to develop.
这项改革的目的旨在在日本推广更加完善的金融产品。民间放款人和日本银行“三巨头”都正在尽最大努力做企业的工作。相对于从资本市场融资，企业更加信赖通 过银行贷款来融资。尽管从上个世纪90年代的银行危机以来，这中信赖程度已经降低了不少，日本企业对银行借款的依赖程度仍然是美国企业的三倍。（参见图 表）银行已经认识到资本市场同样需要发展，但是这种持续了数十年的想法，的确很难改变。



The new rules also let the megabanks compete a bit more easily in the securities business, which is dominated in Japan by Nomura. It handled about half of all financing deals in Japan last fiscal year, and 95% of the deals so far this year. New rivalry at home partly explains Nomura’s interest in looking abroad for growth by acquiring the European and Asian investment-banking arms of Lehman Brothers last autumn. Could Japan yet end up a flag-carrier for liberalisation?
新的制度还能够让银行巨头们在证券市场中的竞争能够轻松一些。日本国内的证券市场被野村证券（Nomura）控制着，它处理了上一财年日本 国内大约一半的金融交易，以及本财年迄今为止95%的交易。由于目前日本国内新的竞争形势，野村证券已经把目光投向海外，通过去年秋天并购莱曼兄弟在欧洲 和亚洲的投行业务来寻求新的增长。日本能够结束这场银行业的自由化进程吗？