泛亞兌付風波或波及銀行 China protests over Fanya liquidity freeze could spread to banks

Chinese banks risk becoming entangled in the fallout from a liquidity freeze at an exchange for rare metals that has also been providing high interest rate investment products through bank branches across the country.

通過全國各地的銀行分支機構銷售高收益投資產品的泛亞有色金屬交易所(Fanya Metal Exchange)出現流動性凍結，由此衍生的風波可能將一些中資銀行卷入其中。

Against a backdrop of renewed turmoil in the Chinese equity markets, there have been protests in the past two weeks in both Kunming and Shanghai as investors in the financial products sold by the Fanya Metal Exchange demand their money back. It emerges that some have already started taking their protests to the banks that distributed the products.

在中國股市再度出現震盪之際，過去兩週，昆明和上海都發生了抗議活動，起因是購買了泛亞金融產品的投資者要求拿回自己的錢。有消息說，一些抗議者已經開始將矛頭指向分銷這些產品的銀行。

Fanya is a forum for trading minor metals like indium and bismuth that has also functioned as a shadow banking conduit — not only leveraging metal deposited with the exchange as collateral for loans, but offering high interest investment products to retail investors.

泛亞是一家交易銦、鉍等稀有金屬的交易所，同時也充當影子銀行管道——不僅利用交易所儲存的稀有金屬作爲抵押獲得貸款，而且還向散戶投資者提供高利息的投資產品。

The exchange, which is based in Kunming, stopped disbursing funds this month to depositors. About $6.4bn in investments is frozen, according to estimates by Chinese media.

總部設在昆明的泛亞本月停止了向儲戶兌付資金。據中國本地媒體估計，約64億美元的投資被凍結。

The exchange attracted regulators’ attention at least eight months ago but references to Fanya were later suppressed leaving potential investors ignorant of authorities’ concerns.

至少在8個月之前，泛亞就引起了監管機構的注意，但對泛亞問題的提醒後來被壓下，使得潛在的投資者並未獲悉當局的擔憂。

The online report of a November 2014 meeting by the Yunnan provincial government on “tidying and reorganisation” of local exchanges included a warning by the head of the Yunnan branch of the China Securities Regulatory Commission that “risk at the Fanya Metal Exchange was noted as very large”.

2014年11月，雲南省政府召開了一次關於“清理整頓”本省交易場所的會議。此次會議發佈在網上的報告中含有中國證監會(CSRC)下屬雲南證監局局長髮出的警告——“泛亞有色金屬交易所風險巨大”。

Shortly after the report was published on the CSRC website it was reposted with that sentence removed, according to Strategic Metal Report, a metals information service that published the original and the redacted version in a November article. “It was pretty much immediate,” said Strategic Metal founder Terence Bell, adding that “within the next month or two” the exchange stopped announcing purchases of metals.

根據金屬信息服務機構Strategic Metal Report在去年11月一篇文章中提供的那次會議報告的原始版和修改版可以看出，該報告被髮布到證監局網站後不久就被替換掉，而那句話也被刪除了。該機構創始人特倫斯貝爾(Terence Bell)說：“它幾乎是立刻被撤換的，”並補充說，“一兩個月後”，泛亞停止了發佈收購有色金屬的信息。

Retail investors are demanding their money back. One of the protesters said his mother invested Rmb1.5m ($242,000) in Fanya products purchased through her local Bank of China branch in Xinjiang, near the frontier with Central Asia. “We’ve tried to report the case to the police’s economic investigation bureau, but they said it’s not under their jurisdiction. We also approached Bank of China, they also said they can’t do much,” he said.

散戶投資者要求拿回自己的錢。一名抗議者說，他的母親通過中國銀行(BoC)在新疆老家的分支機構，投資了150萬元人民幣（約合24.2萬美元)購買泛亞的產品。“我們試過向公安局的經濟偵查科舉報這起案件，但他們說這不歸他們管轄。我們也向中行反應了情況，他們也稱自己無能爲力，”他說。

Online notices indicate the products were marketed through Bank of China branches in Aksu, Xinjiang, and in Hangzhou, a prosperous city in the Yangtze Delta. The products were also marketed through other banks, according to material from Fanya Metal Exchange’s website and former salespeople.

網上公告顯示出，泛亞的產品通過中行位於新疆阿克蘇地區以及長三角繁華之地杭州市的分支機構進行銷售。根據泛亞網站的資料以及該交易所曾經的銷售人員提供的信息，泛亞的產品還通過其他銀行銷售。

Chinese bank branches will sometimes handle deposits for unaffiliated financial products or allow them to be marketed on premises without officially endorsing them. Former salespeople for Fanya investment products described the banks as third-party custodians.

中國的銀行網點有時會代理客戶將存款投向與銀行本身沒有關聯的金融產品，或者允許此類產品通過本行銷售而不爲它們正式背書。而曾經銷售過泛亞投資產品的人士將銀行描述爲第三方託管人。

That distinction is not always clear to retail investors. In some past cases when wealth management products gone awry, regulators have insisted that the bank accept some responsibility. Bank of China declined to comment.

散戶投資者並非總是清楚其中的區別。在過去的一些案例中，理財產品出問題時，監管機構會認定銀行要承擔部分責任。中行拒絕對此進行置評。

The Fanya Metal Exchange’s use of normal banking channels to market its products could mean its troubles have broader systemic effects, if banks are held responsible by regulators.

泛亞使用正規的銀行渠道銷售其產品，這意味着其自身的麻煩會產生更廣泛的系統性影響，如果監管機構認定銀行應負責任的話。

“We can’t comment on Fanya because they are not under our jurisdiction,” the Yunnan securities regulator said on Tuesday. Asked about the redacted report, the regulator said it was “normal information release by us”.

“我們無法就泛亞發表評論，因爲他們不在我們的管轄之下，”雲南省證監局週二表示。當被問及那份被修改的報告時，該局稱那是“我們正常的信息發佈”。

In Kunming — until recently one of the fastest growing cities in south-west China — the combination of falling coal and minerals prices with a rising inventory of unsold properties is proving toxic.

昆明素來是中國西南地區發展最快的城市之一，但近期煤炭和礦產價格下跌以及待售房屋庫存增加正在拖累當地經濟。

The largest real estate company is on life-support and a number of smaller companies have failed, setting off a chain reaction of defaults on shadow loans, business owners said recently.

有企業家近來說，當地最大的房地產開發商正在垂死掙扎，而一些規模較小的開發商已經破產，引發了影子銀行貸款違約的連鎖反應。

The troubles at the Fanya Metal Exchange coincide with a broader slowdown in the Chinese economy and in commodity markets.

泛亞風波正發生在中國經濟及大宗商品市場放緩的大背景之下。

Fanya fallout spreads to rare metal prices

泛亞事件的影響波及稀有金屬價格

Liquidity problems at the Fanya Metal Exchange are pressuring international prices of some rare metals, with concerns that the exchange’s holding stocks of one metal, indium, may exceed four years of global demand.

泛亞的流動性問題正在對一些稀有金屬的國際價格造成下行壓力，市場擔憂，泛亞的銦庫存量可能超過了未來4年全球需求總和。

The exchange has built strategic stockpiles of indium, a metal used in smartphones and LCD screens, as well as other metals used in high-tech applications, while launching index products linked to the prices of those metals.

泛亞建立了銦（用於製造智能手機和液晶顯示屏）及用於高科技產品的其他金屬的戰略儲備，同時推出了與這些金屬價格掛鉤的指數產品。

“Whoever can get out first, will,” said Liu Yajuan, analyst with Asian Metal in Beijing, which recently published a report on the potential impact on indium of the Fanya Metal Exchange troubles. “Downstream processors are buying as little as possible in anticipation of a continuously falling market.”

北京諮詢公司亞洲金屬網(Asian Metal)的分析師劉亞娟（音譯）說：“能先撤的就撤了。”該公司最近發佈了一份關於泛亞遭遇的麻煩對銦潛在影響的報告。“由於預期銦的價格將持續下跌，下游加工商正在儘可能少地採購。”

The metal has strategic implications as a component in high-tech and military applications. Several years ago during a bout of anti-Japanese nationalism, Chinese industrial policymakers proposed the idea of building strategic stockpiles of indium, to counter the strategic stockpiles held by Japan since the early 1980s.

作爲高科技和軍事產品中的用料，銦具有戰略意義。在幾年前的反日民族主義浪潮中，中國工業政策制定者提出了建立銦戰略儲備的想法，以抗衡日本自上世紀80年代早期就開始建立的戰略儲備。

On Wednesday, the spot price of indium was Rmb1,760-Rmb1,860 per kilogramme — almost 50 per cent lower than the Rmb3,200-Rmb3,400/kg quoted in early March when Fanya stopped buying the metal, according to Asian Metal, a pricing and information service based in Beijing.

亞洲金屬網的數據顯示，週三，銦的現貨價格爲每公斤1760元至1860元人民幣——幾乎是今年3月初泛亞停止買入銦時每公斤3200元至3400元人民幣報價的一半。