The balance of residents' deposits is about 145 trillion yuan, which has more than doubled in the past eight years

CBN

2024-05-16 21:38Posted on the official account of Shanghai Yicai

Recently, deposits fell by nearly 4 trillion yuan in April, which has aroused widespread concern about the issue of "where does the money go, where does the money go".

According to the analysis of the "China Monetary Policy Implementation Report for the First Quarter of 2024" (hereinafter referred to as the "First Quarter Monetary Report"), from the perspective of "where does the money go", loans are mainly invested in enterprises and the supply side of the real economy; From the perspective of "where is the money", deposits are mainly in the resident sector.

So, what are the development trends of residents' deposits in recent years? What do these trends mean?

Yicai combed through the data on the structure of RMB deposits in the past eight years and found that while the scale of deposits continued to expand, the proportion of household deposits (resident deposits) continued to rise, from 39.7% in 2016 to 48.2% in 2023. At the same time, the share of deposits from non-financial corporations fell to 27.7% from 33.3% in 2016. According to the latest data released in April 2024, household deposits have accounted for more than 49%, accounting for nearly half; The share of deposits from non-financial enterprises fell to less than 27%.

Luo Zhiheng, chief economist of Guangdong Kai Securities, said to the first financial analysis that the increase in the proportion of household deposits and the decline in the proportion of deposits of non-financial enterprises are directly due to the fact that the growth rate of household deposits is higher than the growth rate of corporate deposits. The core reason for this is that the growth rate of residents' housing purchase and consumption has slowed down, residents' savings have accelerated year-on-year, and corporate revenue has fallen year-on-year.

The balance of household deposits has more than doubled in eight years

According to the "April 2024 Financial Statistics Report" recently released by the central bank, the balance of RMB deposits at the end of April was 291.59 trillion yuan. From the comparison of data, it is found that the monthly deposits in April decreased by nearly 4 trillion yuan; Among them, residents' deposits decreased by 1.85 trillion yuan. However, industry analysts believe that this is mainly a "normal" fluctuation caused by seasonal factors, and this figure will rise again by the end of June.

In recent years, mainland loans have continued to grow rapidly, and deposits have increased markedly. At present, the balance of loans in mainland China is nearly 250 trillion yuan; The balance of deposits is nearly 300 trillion yuan, of which the balance of household deposits is about 145 trillion yuan.

The balance of residents' deposits is about 145 trillion yuan, which has more than doubled in the past eight years

Yicai combed through the data of household deposits in the past eight years and found that the scale of household deposits has more than doubled from 59.8 trillion yuan in 2016 to 137 trillion yuan in 2023, and the growth rate of household deposits has increased from 9.5% in 2016 to 13.8% in 2023. In terms of seasons, the growth rate from the third quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2023 is higher than the growth rate of 13.8% for the whole of 2023.

At the same time, in the past eight years, the deposit balance of non-financial enterprises has increased from 50 trillion yuan to 78.8 trillion yuan in 2023, an increase of 57.6%; Deposit growth showed a fluctuating downward trend overall, from 16.7% in 2016 to 5.5% in 2023.

According to the "First Quarter Monetary Report", in the process of economic circulation, if banks are still expanding their assets and loans are still increasing, money will not decrease from the real economy, nor will it disappear, but with the investment and production of enterprises, household consumption, fiscal revenue and expenditure, deposits will be transferred between enterprises, residents, governments and other departments. At the end of March 2024, residents, enterprises, and governments accounted for 49%, 27%, and 14% of the total deposits of about 296 trillion yuan, up 7.1, 4.2, and 3.3 percentage points respectively from 2019, before the epidemic.

"Due to the fact that household consumption has yet to recover and aggregate demand is insufficient, deposits are mainly retained in the residential sector and have not been further converted into corporate deposits through household sector expenditure. At the same time, the trend of regularization of deposits by enterprises and residents has intensified. The proportion of time and demand deposits has risen from '64 open' in 2017 to '73 open' at present. The Q1 Monetary Report reads.

According to Luo Zhiheng's analysis, the sales of commercial housing and the total retail sales of consumer goods fell from 34.8% and 10.4% in 2016 to 6.5% and 8% in 2019 respectively, and then dragged down by the impact of the epidemic and the downturn in the real estate market. In addition, the decline in wealth management yields and the overall poor performance of the stock market have led to the relocation and transfer of residents' deposits, the return of deposits, and the further rebound in the growth rate of residents' deposits.

Willingness to save has risen

Regarding residents' savings and investment preferences, the "First Quarter Monetary Report" analyzes that there will be relative changes in the rate of return of various assets such as on-balance sheet deposits and off-balance sheet managed products, which will affect residents' risk appetite and investment behavior, and residents will adjust their asset allocation accordingly. This is also an important factor affecting the proportion of residents' deposits.

In terms of consumption, savings and investment intentions, the central bank's "Urban Depositor Questionnaire Survey Report" for the first quarter of 2024 showed that 23.4% of residents were inclined to "consume more", which was basically the same as the previous quarter; 61.8 percent of the residents preferred "more savings", an increase of 0.7 percentage points from the previous quarter, and 14.9 percent preferred "more investment", a decrease of 0.7 percentage points from the previous quarter.

When asked about the items they plan to spend more on in the next three months this year, residents chose education (28.6%), health care (26.3%), tourism (25.4%), social culture and entertainment (20.5%), big-ticket goods (17.7%), home purchase (15%) and insurance (14%).

Yicai combed the "Questionnaire Survey Report of Urban Depositors" released by the central bank every quarter over the years and found that residents' willingness to save has been rising, and their willingness to invest has gradually declined. In the first quarter of 2017, 42.3%, 23.8% and 33.9% of residents chose "more savings", "more consumption" and "more investment", respectively. In the first quarter of 2024, "more savings" rose by 19.5 percentage points to 61.8%, "more consumption" fell by 0.4 percentage points to 23.4%, and "more investment" fell by 19 percentage points to 14.9%.

"Excess savings (deposits)" are gradually declining

At the beginning of last year, the 8 trillion yuan of "excess savings" in 2022 sparked widespread discussion. At the time, the expectation was that "excess savings" would support revenge spending in 2023. Judging from the data for the whole year of 2023, household deposits increased by 16.7 trillion yuan that year. Although the scale of the new increase is still very large, it is 1.2 trillion yuan less than the new increase in 2022.

Luo Zhiheng said in his analysis of Yicai that the year-on-year growth rate of household deposits has continued to decline since 2023: first, the rapid recovery of residents' service consumption after the epidemic; Second, in the context of the downward trend of deposit interest rates, residents' deposits have turned to wealth management products. The "excess deposits" accumulated in the early stage gradually declined and returned to normal.

Yicai combed through the quarterly "Monetary Policy Implementation Report" of the past two years and found that from the second quarter of 2022, the growth rate of household deposits increased significantly, reaching 18.1% in the first quarter of 2023. Since then, the growth rate has slowed down, falling by 0.9, 0.7, 2.7 and 2 percentage points from the second quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024.

"At present, the mainland's economic restructuring, transformation and upgrading are accelerating, the economy is more lightweight, and the credit structure is also being optimized and upgraded. At the same time, with the recovery of effective demand and the improvement of social expectations, the efficiency of capital turnover has been improved, and the phenomenon of capital precipitation is also alleviating. The "First Quarter Monetary Report" said.

(This article is from Yicai)

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