(Bloomberg) -- Chinese banks lowered borrowing costs for the first time in 20 months, providing support to an economy showing strain from a property slump and sporadic virus outbreaks.
The one-year loan prime rate was set at 3.8% versus 3.85% in November, the first reduction since April 2020, according to a statement from the People’s Bank of China on Monday. The move follows the PBOC’s action earlier this month to cut the amount of cash banks must hold in reserve, which freed up 1.2 trillion yuan ($188 billion) of cheap long-term funds for banks.
The five-year loan prime rate, a reference for mortgages, was unchanged at 4.65%.
The CSI 300 Real Estate Index climbed as much as 2.1% at 9:49 a.m. in Shanghai. Gemdale Corp. and China Merchants Shekou Industrial Zone Holdings Co. led the gains, each rising at least 3.7%.
“The cut reinforces our view that China’s authorities are increasingly open to the possibility of an interest-rate cut amid looming headwinds to the economy,” said Xing Zhaopeng, senior China strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (OTC:ANZBY) Ltd. There will be another RRR cut early next year amid mounting credit risks in the property sector, he said.
Two cuts of banks’ reserve requirement ratio this year have lowered banks’ annual capital costs by 28 billion yuan in total, and this has been enough for banks to lower the LPR, according to Bruce Pang, head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance Securities Hong Kong Ltd.
“Commercial banks have accumulated sufficient momentum to lower their key benchmark for loan interest rates, and their historically low net-interest margin is no longer a hindrance,” said Pang. The next window for monetary easing could be late January, when the PBOC could cut the RRR, rates or roll out structural tools, he said.
The LPR has been considered China’s de facto benchmark funding cost since a reform in 2019. It’s based on the interest rate for one-year loans that 18 banks offer their best customers, and is reported in the form of a spread over the interest rate on the central bank’s medium-term lending facility.
With the PBOC having kept the rate on its medium-term loans unchanged last week, most economists polled by Bloomberg had expected the LPR to remain steady as well.
Still, the chorus for a rate cut has grown louder recently as Beijing shifted its focus to stabilizing economic growth. Interest rate swaps also showed traders had been betting the LPR would soon be cut.
“It is a small surprise since the PBOC left the 1-year MLF rate unchanged last week. It suggests banks are setting the 1-year LPR based on their own judgment,” said Qi Gao, a strategist at Bank of Nova Scotia.
(Updates with market reaction, economist comments)
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