(Original title: The loan interest rate quotation was slightly lowered on the first day of the reform, and the central bank said that the mortgage interest rate will not decrease)

"The mortgage interest rate has changed from the reference benchmark interest rate to the reference LPR, but the final loan interest rate level must remain basically stable."

Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, made the above statement at the State Council's regular policy briefing at 10 a.m. on August 20. "How to operate specifically? In a few days, the People's Bank of China will issue an announcement on the interest rate policy for personal housing loans. Some details are still under investigation and will be clarified after the investigation. But one thing is for sure, the interest rate of mortgage loans will not decrease."

Last week, the State Council executive meeting deployed market-oriented reform methods to significantly reduce the actual interest rate level and solve the problem of financing difficulties. On August 17, the People's Bank of China officially issued an announcement announcing the reform and improvement of the loan market quotation rate (LPR) formation mechanism. (For details, see "Loan Interest Rate Unification Launched, Central Bank Announces LPR Reform Plan"

This morning, the People's Bank of China authorized the National Interbank Funding Center to announce that the loan market quoted interest rate (LPR) on August 20, 2019 was: 1-year LPR was 4.25%, lower than the previous level of 4.31%; 5-year and above LPR was 4.85%.

Source: National Interbank Lending Center

Wang Qing, chief macro analyst of Oriental Jincheng, believes that in order to ensure the smooth transition of the "anchor change" of loan interest rates, this LPR point increase is relatively high. Compared with the original LPR (the loan interest rate executed by commercial banks for their best customers), the new LPR is still slightly lowered by 6 basis points. Although the range is Although it is limited, it has released a downward signal for credit costs in the real economy, and there is still room for LPR to be lowered in the future.

Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said that the launch of a new LPR formation mechanism aims to promote the market-oriented reform of interest rates. Each quoting bank will quote prices according to market-oriented principles, and the banks will set prices independently with reference to the LPR, which will help smooth the monetary policy transmission mechanism. , improve the efficiency of market allocation of resources, promote the reduction of corporate financing costs, and narrow the gap between national regulatory policies and the experience of the real economy.

China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission Vice Chairman Zhou Liang said at the above briefing, "We predict that under the current situation, the implementation of LPR will help reduce the financing costs of enterprises, especially private and small and micro enterprises."

The data shows. According to the report, in the first half of this year, the loan balance of small and micro enterprises nationwide reached 35.6 trillion yuan, of which the loan balance of inclusive small and micro enterprises was 10.7 trillion yuan, with a growth rate of 14.27%, which was 7.14 percentage points higher than the growth rate of various loans. At the same time, the number of enterprises receiving loans reached 19.88 million, an increase of 2.65 million from the beginning of the year. The loan interest rate for micro-enterprises is 6.82%, 0.58 percentage points lower than the average interest rate for the whole year of 2018.

As for the impact of LPR reform on commercial banks, Sun Guofeng, director of the Monetary Policy Department of the People's Bank of China, responded that the short-term decline in loan interest rates may also have a certain impact on banks' interest margins and profits. But on the other hand, in terms of deposit interest rates, deposits The benchmark interest rate is retained and will be retained for a long time in the future. The People's Bank of China will also guide the self-regulatory mechanism for market interest rate pricing, strengthen the self-regulatory management of deposit interest rates, maintain the order of market competition, stabilize the cost of bank liabilities, and create favorable conditions for the sustainable development of banks.

Sun Guofeng said that the overall interest rate decline in the early period was relatively large. We look at bonds. The interest rate on repurchases and the yield on ten-year government bonds are now about 3%, down 1 percentage point from the beginning of last year. The interest rates on corporate bonds have dropped by about 1.2 percentage points. However, the past LPR formation mechanism did not reflect the changes in market interest rates well. Under the new LPR formation mechanism, due to the improvement of marketization, the decline in past market interest rates will occur. The reduction will be reflected more, which will drive the LPR downward.

"The LPR level announced at 9:30 today is slightly lower than the previous level. This is not only a reflection of the quoting bank's independent quotation of the best customer loan interest rates in accordance with market-oriented principles, but also a reflection of the new LPR's greater reflection of market changes." Sun Guofeng said.

Eastern Jincheng said. Next, commercial banks will use the new LPR as the pricing benchmark to determine loan interest rates based on the risk levels of different customers. This also means that the overall loan interest rate reduction is expected to accelerate in the future. This trend may be reflected in the average interest rate data for general loans in the third quarter. At the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Some people believe that the new LPR mechanism will increase the depreciation pressure of the RMB. Sun Guofeng said that the fluctuation of the RMB exchange rate is completely a market-oriented behavior. The current central parity rate of the RMB against the US dollar, the onshore market exchange rate, and the offshore market are expected to be stable. The market exchange rate has "three prices integrated into one", indicating that market expectations are generally stable, which also confirms what we have said before, "7" is neither an age nor a dam, and the RMB exchange rate will remain basically stable at a reasonable and balanced level.

"As for this reform, improving the LPR formation mechanism will help reduce loan interest rates. , mainly targeting corporate financing costs. Usually we say that the exchange rate is directly related to market interest rates. This reform does not involve changes in market interest rates. The key word of this reform is the marketization of loan interest rates. Therefore, it has no direct impact on the RMB exchange rate.