In the case of traditional business obstruction, standard trust is a key area of business transformation of trust companies. According to the data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the scale of investment trusts increased to 8.03 trillion yuan, a substantial increase of 41.42% year-on-year and 5.19% month-on-month.
Wen | Reporter Chen Hongjie of Caijing
Editor| Yuan Man
Under the pressure of strict supervision, the trust industry is undergoing a double adjustment of total volume and structure.
Compared with the second quarter of 2021, the end of the third quarter of 2021 has declined, and the asset structure of the trust industry has continued to be optimized. On December 1, 2021, the main business data of trust companies at the end of the third quarter of 2021 released by the China Trust Industry Association showed that as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of trust assets entrusted to the trust industry was 20.44 trillion yuan, down 0.94% from the end of the second quarter and 22.11% from the peak at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017.
The transformation effect of trust business is reflected in the change in the scale of trust funding sources. The data shows that the scale and proportion of single-fund trusts based on channel business have decreased year by year, with a year-on-year decline of more than 20% since 2021. In addition, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the scale of financing trusts that the market cares about was 3.86 trillion yuan, down 35.13% year-on-year; the balance of capital trusts invested in the real estate industry was 1.95 trillion yuan, down 18.13% year-on-year.
In the future, the scale of the trust industry is expected to be further reduced. A number of industry insiders told the "Finance" reporter that the regulatory authorities' requirements for trust companies are that the pressure drop financing trust business is still the focus of the fourth quarter of 2021 and the year after tomorrow. For the channel business, the requirement is "control the new addition, and the stock is cleared as soon as possible".
In the case of traditional business obstruction, standard trust is a key area of business transformation of trust companies. According to the data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the scale of investment trusts increased to 8.03 trillion yuan, a substantial increase of 41.42% year-on-year and 5.19% month-on-month.
"Under the guidance of the policy, it is expected that the scale and proportion of securities market trusts will continue to increase." At the same time, the environment for deepening the reform of the capital market has brought standardized asset investment opportunities to trust companies, trust companies should give full play to the original attributes of trust assets, develop direct financing business, promote the investment and financing structure of the financial market to match the structure of real economic development, and form a benign interaction and efficient operation of the financial and real economy financial integration pattern. Zhou Ping, a special researcher of the China Trust Industry Association, said.
Pressure drop financing trust: The investment balance of housing enterprises is less than 2 trillion yuan
In the rapid development of the trust industry in the past decade, the characteristics of its extensive development have deviated from the positioning of the trust as the "trustee", and the financing business of channel and shadow banking has occupied a dominant position. Family trusts, charitable trusts and active management businesses with their origin business have not yet received attention from institutions.
In order to improve the above situation, the regulatory authorities have promoted the transformation of the industry through the strict supervision of "two pressures and one drop". According to the data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of trust assets entrusted and managed by the trust industry was 20.44 trillion yuan, down 2% year-on-year, down 0.94% from the end of the second quarter, and down 22.11% from the peak at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017.
It is worth mentioning that since the fourth quarter of 2017, the scale and proportion of single-fund trusts based on channel business have decreased year by year, and the year-on-year decline since 2021 (the end of the third quarter) has exceeded 20%.
In addition, under the policy background of the continuous pressure drop of financing trusts by the regulatory authorities, the scale of financing trusts has declined rapidly since the third quarter of 2020. As of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the scale of financing trusts was 3.86 trillion yuan, down 35.13% year-on-year and 6.57% month-on-month; financing trusts accounted for 18.88%, down 9.64 percentage points year-on-year and 1.14 percentage points month-on-month.
As one of the pillars of the trust industry in the past, real estate trusts are a topic of great concern to the market. Under the policy positioning of "housing and not speculation", the control of the real estate industry by relevant departments continues to increase, and the financing conditions are constantly tightened, while the default events of real estate enterprises are frequent, and the capital investment of trust companies in the real estate field continues to tighten.
According to the data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of capital trusts invested in the real estate industry was 1.95 trillion yuan, down 18.13% year-on-year and 6.30% month-on-month; the proportion of real estate trusts fell to 12.42%, down 1.38 percentage points year-on-year and 0.59 percentage points month-on-month.
Industry insiders believe that the regulation and upgrading of the real estate industry can avoid waste of resources and potential systemic financial risks. "The decline in the scale and proportion of real estate trust business will help trust companies invest more funds in key areas of economic transformation and upgrading, and better play the function of trust services for the high-quality development of the real economy." Zhou Ping said.
Some trust company personnel told caijing reporters that it is expected that the real estate trust business will continue to decline in the fourth quarter of this year, due to the strict control of the regulatory authorities on the increment. "Many companies have used the full annual control indicators in the third quarter of this year. At present, the requirements of the regulatory authorities for the real estate business of trust companies are to do a good job in the post-investment management and maintenance of existing projects. The above-mentioned person said.
It is not only the real estate trust business that is regulated, but all non-standard businesses. In 2020, the Interim Measures for the Administration of Trust Company Fund Trusts (Draft for Solicitation of Comments) issued by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) require that the total amount of all collective fund trusts invested in non-standard debt assets shall not exceed 50% of the total paid-in trusts of all collective fund trusts at any point in time.
Zhou Ping said that under the guidance of the regulatory authorities, the trust industry's "two pressures and one drop" have achieved results, and the current scale of capital trusts invested in financial institutions has been reduced by more than half compared with the high point at the end of 2017 (4.11 trillion yuan), and the phenomenon of idling funds has been significantly reduced, which will help reduce the risk of too long and hidden capital chains while improving financial efficiency.
The rise of standard products: securities investment trust balances increased by 38% year-on-year
Under the obstruction of non-standard business, trust companies transformed and developed standard business. According to the data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of capital trusts invested in the securities market was 3.06 trillion yuan, an increase of 38.12% year-on-year and 9.22% month-on-month.
Further, the growth of securities market trusts is mainly due to the substantial year-on-year growth in investment in stock and bond fund trust products, especially in bond trust products. As of the third quarter of 2021, the scale of investment in stocks, bonds and funds was 0.65 trillion yuan, 2.13 trillion yuan and 0.28 trillion yuan respectively, an increase of 6.54%, 57.36% and 10.75% respectively, and the proportion of each was 4.12%, 13.60% and 1.78% respectively.
"The way out of trust lies in securities investment trusts. The reason is that the trust business invested in stocks, bonds and funds is a real asset management business, and although trust companies do not obtain high interest rate differentials, they will not accumulate large-scale bad performance. In the past, trust companies carried out non-standard business such as real estate trusts and made money quickly, but once a risk occurred, one or two single projects would write off the net profit of the entire small and medium-sized trust company for the whole year. A person from a trust company told the "Finance" reporter.
As an important track for the transformation of the standard business of trust companies, FOF/TOF products are "favored" by trust companies. For example, according to the incomplete statistics of the Utility Financial Trust Research Institute, since the beginning of 2021, more than 600 TOF products in the trust industry have been established, which is an improvement over 2020 (about 400 in the same period) and 2019 (about 200 in the same period).
In fact, as early as 2009, trust companies began to test the water FOF/TOF products, but at that time, the market's inertial thinking about trust products was still dominated by non-standard real estate and urban investment projects, and standardized products have not been able to become the "main force" of trust company business. However, since 2018, the traditional financing business of the trust industry has been restricted, and various trust companies have redeveloped standardized trust products, and trust FOF/TOF products have undergone several years of innovation and exploration and begun to enter the "fast lane" of accelerated development.
At present, some of the results of the transformation of some trust companies have been announced. For example, at present, the scale of CITIC Trust's full range of independent decision-making TOF products has exceeded 10 billion yuan, and the scale of foreign trade trust FOF business has exceeded 20 billion yuan.