Bank Runs Show China’s Need For Bank Deposit Insurance

THE THREE DAY run on Jiangsu Sheyang Commercial Bank and then on Rural Commercial Bank of Huanghai earlier this week highlights the need for explicit bank deposit insurance in China to replace the implicit guarantees that the government will stand behind depositors. Jiangsu Sheyang is a small rural lender whose 12 billion yuan ($1.9 billion) in assets is barely a rounding error in the total assets of China’s banking system. Yet the panicky withdrawal of funds from four of its branches on nothing more than a rumor that a customer had been denied a withdrawal of their funds needed a full-court press by authorities, including a very public demonstration of large stacks of cash bearing the central bank’s seal being made available, to restore depositors’ confidence and bring the run to a halt.

Setting up a bank deposit insurance scheme would also provide a point of differentiation between the formal and shadow banking systems, making the former more attractive to depositors who are starting to see a number of failures of shadow banking products, albeit small-scale ones, along with, pertinently in Jiangsu Sheyang’s case, the failures of some rural credit co-operatives in the province in January, whose bosses fled in the face of investment losses.

It would also provide a firebreak of sorts between the two banking systems. That might help calm the nerves of policymakers, already frazzled by China’s first corporate bond default and mounting anxiety about the real estate market. They worry that a shadow banking collapse could reverberate into a bigger systemic buckling of the financial system. In the interim, China has resorted to a bit of old-fashioned regulation. The suspected original rumormonger has been arrested.