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37Трансформация операционной модели коммерческих банков с легкими активами в условиях цифровизации
Го Шаньюань
аспирант, Институт бизнеса БГУ, 709742898@qq.com Догиль Леонид Филиппович
доктор экономических наук, профессор, Институт бизнеса БГУ, Dogil.lf@mail.ru
Прохорова Татьяна Владимировна
канд. экон. наук, доц., Институт бизнеса БГУ, prokhorova@sbmt.by
В последние годы переход к малоактивному режиму работы стал основным направлением развития коммерческих банков, но это также привело к медленному развитию нового бизнеса, необходимости совершенствования системы рисков, несоответствию организационной структуры, отсутствию основных элементов и другие проблемы. Основываясь на цифровом фоне, в этой статье анализируется необходимость и состояние разработки перехода коммерческих банков на режим работы с минимальными активами, а также излагается путь перехода коммерческих банков на режим работы с легкими активами с четырех точек зрения: актив-легкий, капитал -свет, долг-свет и операционный свет.
Ключевые слова: цифровизация; Коммерческие банки; актив свет; Режим работы
The epidemic has undoubtedly had a huge negative impact on the development of the global economy and many countries have introduced supportive policies in order to ease the pressure on banks and the population. For example, in 2020 the major banks in Belarus restructured their debts for a total amount of more than 1.3[1] billion white e Russian rubles.
In China's financial sector, as financial reforms and innovations continue to deepen, competition among banks is intensifying and the deposit and loan spread business is being squeezed. The traditional business model of asset-heavy operations and capital consumption in the past, with scale expansion to enhance profitability, is unsustainable, and commercial banks must transform to an asset-light operation model that creates greater value returns with less capital consumption. However, although the asset-light operating model has the advantages of less capital consumption and greater resilience, it may also face problems such as weak control, especially for commercial banks that are used to heavy asset operations, and their inability to adapt to the new model may lead to greater risks on the road to transformation. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to comprehensively and systematically study the transformation of commercial banks to an asset-light operation model in the context of digitalisation, in order to provide valuable measures for financial reform and bank decision-making.
The need for commercial banks to transform to an asset-light operation model in the digital background
In the context of digitalization, the internal and external environment of commercial banks is undergoing profound changes, bringing serious challenges to the development model of commercial banks which relies excessively on scale expansion.
The development and application of technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, mobile internet, cloud computing, blockchain and biometrics have changed the way of life in society and led to profound changes in the financial industry, significantly improving the efficiency of financial services. Efficiency, the traditional deposit and loan business of commercial banks has been unable to meet the diversified financial needs of customers[2].
In terms of their own development needs, financial products and services are deeply embedded in all aspects of people's lives and business management, deeply integrated with customers' lives and business management, and increasingly differentiated customer needs have prompted commercial banks to provide customized and quick one-stop financial services solutions.
In terms of regulatory requirements, financial supervision has become increasingly stringent, especially as financial institutions have converged with international standards, established countercyclical capital buffer mechanisms and strengthened requirements for core indicators such as capital adequacy ratios and asset liquidity ratios of commercial banks, but the accumulation of endogenous and exogenous capital is more difficult to replenish, making capital scarcity more and more prominent, and it is clear that the asset structure and capital consumption biased model cannot achieve It is clear that the asset structure and capital-consuming model cannot achieve sustainable expansion of commercial banks' assets, and it is urgent to accelerate the
transformation. The asset-light operating model of commercial banks is based on technologies such as the Big Smart Mobile Cloud, which integrates internal and external resources of banks and enables commercial banks to maintain organisational flexibility with less asset investment and capital consumption, a more intensive operating model and a lighter operating system, so as to quickly respond to market changes and achieve value enhancement. The transformation to an asset-light operating model is not only an objective requirement to respond to the structural transformation of the economy and the development trend of a lighter financial industry, but also a realistic need to achieve its own transformation, which can effectively cope with the bottlenecks and challenges in the development of the banking industry. Therefore, like other industries, the transformation of commercial banks to an asset-light operating model has become an inevitable trend in the development of the banking industry.
Status of development of commercial banks in China
Assets and liabilities
According to the available data from the People's Bank of China, the total assets of China's banking industry are steadily increasing and the market size of the banking industry is expanding, reaching 344.76 trillion yuan in 2021, with a growth rate of 7.8%, and 319.74 trillion yuan in 2020, an increase of 2.974 billion yuan compared to 2019. the total liabilities of China's banking industry are 315.28 trillion yuan in 2021, with an increase of 7.6% compared to 2020 by 7.6%[4].
Table 1
Statistics on assets and liabilities of the banking sector in China, 2019202114]
Year Total assets (trillions of Yuan) Total liabilities (trillions of Yuan)
2019 290 265.54
2020 319.74 293.11
2021 344.76 315.28
Year Net profit (billion yuan)
2015 15926
2016 16490
2017 17477
2018 18302
2019 19932
2020 19392
2021 21841
the net profit of commercial banks is steadily increasing, but we still need to pay attention to prevent financial risks. China's non-performing loans ratio of commercial banks has remained low in recent years, but non-performing loans are still the main risk affecting the safety and stability of China's financial market. The impact of the epidemic policy and the gradual popularity of online banking have caused the traditional banking industry to suffer some impact, but the traditional banking industry adheres to a new service concept by ensuring customer satisfaction and the effectiveness of the role of Internet information. This new service concept is in line with the financial model of the Internet, and also brings into play the big data advantages of traditional banks themselves with the existence of a large amount of customer information.
Table 3
Year Non-Performing Loan Ratio (%)
2018 1.8275
2019 1.8325
2020 1.9125
2021 1.76
Analysis of operating conditions
The net profit income of Chinese commercial banks grew steadily overall from 2015 to 2021, with a decline in 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic. After reasonable measures taken by Chinese banks and financial institutions to address the risks of the epidemic and other parties, the annual net profit income of commercial banks reached RMB 218.21 billion as of 2021, an increase of 25% from 2020[4] and the overall profit of the industry income is still on an upward trend.
Table 2
The prevailing international standard considers the alert line for financial institutions to be 10%, and an excessively high non-performing loan ratio will affect the ability of banks to support the economy. Overall, the non-performing loan ratio of Chinese commercial banks is maintained at a low level, with annual averages of 1.8275%, 1.8325%, 1.9125% and 1.76% for 20182021, respectively[5].
In 2021, the overall development of China's banking industry is good, the total assets of the banking industry continues to grow and
Difficulties faced by Chinese commercial banks in their asset-light operation model
The transition to an asset-light operating model means a large adjustment in business structure, frequent movement of capital in different markets, and an increase in cross-border and financial innovation activities, and commercial banks are particularly exposed to risks and problems. The transition from "heavy" to "light" is vulnerable to setbacks.
Slow development of new businesses.
In line with the trend of asset-light operations, commercial banks need to complete their transformation from traditional capital intermediaries to financial services providers through non-interest-bearing businesses such as investment banking, capital management, custody and wealth management. At present, Chinese commercial banks have carried out many intermediary businesses, but the proportion of non-interest income in net income is still low.
In the United States, Germany and Japan, the proportion of non-interest income in the banking sector is generally above 30%, and in the UK, it even exceeded 70% at one point during the "financial explosion" in the 1990s, which is significantly higher than China's level of around 20%[6]. On the one hand, along with the wave of financial liberalisation in the 1970s, many developed countries in the West gradually entered into the stage of interest rate marketisation and financial mixing, and regulation was relaxed in various aspects such as scope and type of business to broaden the scope of institutions' business. On the other hand, the proliferation of derivatives innovations has contributed to higher trading income for banks' proprietary business. There is still a gap between the development of asset-light and capital-light businesses of Chinese commercial banks and that of large international banks. On the one hand, the development of non-interest-bearing business of asset-light commercial banks relies on the ability to integrate resources and intermediary services, but how to build a customer-centric business aggregation platform and meet diversified financial services through specialised service allocation is a constraint bottleneck nowadays; on the other hand, subject to the contradiction between the development trend of integrated operation of the financial industry and the institutional mechanism of financial sectoral regulation, commercial banks find it difficult to provide customers with diversified, scenario-based and
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all-round integrated financial services to enhance asset-light and capital-light income.
The risk control system needs to be improved.
In the era when credit business was the main focus, commercial banks focused on good credit risk management and the risk management system was relatively simple. After the transformation to an asset-light operation model, from the business level, off-balance-sheet businesses such as investment banking have developed faster, cross-industry cross-border businesses have increased, and financial innovation has made commercial banks' business types more diverse, transaction subjects more diversified and structures more complex. From the perspective of organizational boundaries, capital flows frequently among different entities and markets, offline channels are cross-fertilized with online channels, financial products are embedded in personal life scenarios and corporate management processes, and the expansion of organizational boundaries has led to a more fragmented value chain of commercial banks and a significant increase in the complexity, conductivity and concealment of risks.
Traditional organisational structure becomes a constraint.
After transforming into an asset-light operation model, the organisational structure of commercial banks has become more complex. Firstly, the integration of traditional credit business with investment banking, transaction banking and other asset-light businesses has become a major area of innovation and a new profit growth point, but it also poses a great challenge to the "seamless integration" between lines of business; secondly, the provision of one-stop financial services for customers requires commercial banks to Secondly, the provision of one-stop financial services to customers requires commercial banks to achieve cross-sector operation and cooperation and give full play to the role of subsidiaries such as funds, securities and trusts, but it has become a real challenge to realise the synergy of parent and subsidiary companies; thirdly, in practice, commercial banks have leveraged the resources of the entire ecosystem through their own core business, making external cooperation more frequent, which has greatly expanded the organisational boundaries of resources at their disposal, but also multiplied the management difficulties.
Core elements such as technology and talent are difficult to adapt to changing circumstances.
On the one hand, asset-light commercial banks integrate resources through the ecosystem, the boundary of disposable resources expands and the division of labour among participants becomes more and more refined, but this flexible leverage capability is water without a source and wood without a strong big data capability. On the other hand, human resources are an important guarantee for commercial banks to implement the asset-light operation model. However, in terms of talent team building, commercial banks do not have enough high-end talent reserves and the incentive and restraint mechanisms are not scientific and perfect, coupled with the lack of human resource management capabilities in the ecosystem, the overall quality of the talent team needs to be strengthened.
The transformation path of commercial banks to an asset-light operation model
To break the constraints of the traditional thinking framework and get rid of the inertia of balance sheet expansion, it is necessary to make systematic and deep-level changes to the asset-light operating model of commercial banks. Combined with the exploration and practice of the banking industry, the transformation path of commercial banks to an asset-light operation model mainly includes the following four aspects.
Continuous optimisation of asset structure to make assets lighter.
Commercial banks should follow the economic development trend, abandon the "speed sentiment" and "scale belief", and build an operating structure with a more optimised asset structure through structural adjustment. The first is to integrate credit and non-credit assets. Firstly, we should co-ordinate credit and non-credit assets and accelerate the transformation of our financing business. On the one hand, we will closely follow the financial needs of major national strategies and key areas, base on the major domestic cycle, increase the allocation of credit assets to areas such as technological innovation, industrial upgrading and people's needs for a better life, and innovate the credit business model; on the other hand, we will increase the allocation and transactions of non-credit assets such as financial leasing and accounts receivable financing, and establish a multi-level and multi-dimensional financing business system. Secondly, it should ensure a diversified and stable asset structure and reduce the weighting of risky assets. It should reasonably develop various types of active asset businesses such as bond investment and interbank investment, and reduce the weighting of risky assets by maintaining a diversified and stable asset structure. Thirdly, the securitisation of assets should be vigorously pursued to enhance the asset turnover ratio. On the premise of effectively strengthening risk management of on- and off-balance sheet assets, we will promote innovation in asset securitisation business, make full use of new tools and instruments such as asset securitisation and asset trading to revitalise stock assets and optimise incremental assets, so as to realise the "off-balance sheet" of on-balance sheet credit assets and enhance the asset turnover rate and yield.
Vigorously develop low-capital-consumption businesses to make capital lighter.
With the financialisation of the economy and the acceleration of the financial market, China is in the transition stage of financial disintermediation, and direct financing is gradually becoming the mainstream financing method, so it has become an essential requirement for commercial banks to achieve more efficient development with less capital consumption. First, we will continue to promote capital-light banking. Commercial banks should take the initiative to adapt to customer demand, make continuous efforts in low-capital-consumption businesses such as investment banking, interbanking, asset management, wealth management and custody, and continuously enrich and improve the system of intermediate business products such as direct financing instruments, structured financing and industrial funds, so as to form a sustainable profit model that relies on off-balance-sheet capital, thereby greatly reducing the consumption of their own capital and improving the return on investment. Secondly, we will explore the promotion of capital-light non-banking financial businesses. Through non-banking businesses such as funds, leasing, insurance and trusts, we can effectively connect to commercial banks' off-balance-sheet capital, especially to the capital market which has huge amounts of capital, so as to create synergy and interaction between business lines and achieve the effect of light capital consumption and high profit return.
Reduce the cost of sunk funds and make liabilities lighter.
Only by deeply embedding financial products and services into all aspects of customers' lives and business management, focusing on personalized product customization, maintaining high-frequency interactions and providing one-stop integrated solutions in customer scenario-based experiences can commercial banks safeguard user experience and maintain customer stickiness, thereby reducing the cost of capital. Firstly, in the public sector, we will upgrade our transaction banking, payment and custodian
services, realize the whole process of financial services such as transaction settlement, cash collection and payment, and cross-border finance through big data, artificial intelligence and other technical means, and create a "finance+industry" value chain with scenario-based services such as order processing, inventory management and production and procurement to promote short-term The company has also created a "finance+industry" value chain with scenario-based services for order processing, inventory management and production and procurement, and promoted short-term liquidity and deposit of demand funds. Secondly, in the retail sector, innovative payment and wealth management businesses, through technology enhancement and external connection cooperation, provide a full set of financial services of "finance + life", strengthen the control of core customers' capital flow through comprehensive solutions that go deep into scenarios, so that customers can develop path dependence, thus greatly enhancing the stability of bank deposits. The richness and perfection of product lines and the enhancement of customer stickiness are conducive to commercial banks' acquisition of more stable and low-cost sedimentary funds.
Accelerate digital transformation to make operations lighter.
In an era of scarce resources and frequent changes in customer demand, it is difficult to rely on the internal resources of individual commercial banks to cover all aspects of the value chain. Building an ecosystem with flexible and dynamic value creation capabilities has become an important path for commercial banks to improve operational efficiency and reduce operating costs. The first is to integrate online and offline channels. By making full use of technological achievements such as artificial intelligence and smart devices to reduce labour costs, streamline management processes and improve the operational efficiency of branches, and by smoothing out the relationship functions of different transaction channels, commercial banks can achieve a seamless integration of online and offline channels to improve asset efficiency while reducing costs. Secondly, it connects different stakeholders. By connecting different stakeholders, commercial banks can establish a new relationship of cooperation, win-win and sharing, and provide customers with comprehensive solutions focusing on financial products and services by integrating resources, thereby improving operational efficiency. Thirdly, building a "finance + service" ecosystem. In the process of asset-light operation, commercial banks should use value as a link to
With limited capital investment, the dynamic and diversified nature of the ecosystem's resources also ensures the organisational flexibility of commercial banks.
Transformation of commercial banks' asset-light operating model in the context
of digitalisation Guo ShangYuan, Dogil L.F., Prokhorova T.V.
Belarusian State University
JEL classification: G20, G24, G28, H25, H30, H60, H72, H81, K22, K34
In recent years, the transformation to asset-light operation mode has become the main development direction of commercial banks, but it has also resulted in the slow development of new business, risk system to be improved, organizational structure mismatch, lack of core elements and other problems. Based on the digital background, this paper analyzes the necessity and development status of commercial banks' transformation to asset-light operation mode, and expounds the path of commercial banks' transformation to asset-light operation mode from four perspectives: asset-light, capital-light, debt-light and operation-light. Keywords: Digitalization; Commercial banks; Asset light; Mode of Operation References
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overcome difficulties to help the healthy and stable development of the real economy [Electronic resource] // Huajing Intelligence. -2022, China. -Accessed by: https://www.huaon.com/channel/trend/806747.html.-Date of search: 11.28.2022.
Conclusion
In the context of digitalisation, how Chinese commercial banks can clearly grasp the characteristics of the asset-light operating model of commercial banks and innovate the implementation path that is compatible with the transformation of the asset-light operating model is the key to the successful transformation of commercial banks and the maintenance of their lasting competitiveness. At present, Chinese commercial banks face a number of dilemmas in the transformation of their asset-light operating model. Chinese commercial banks must respond to the trend of the times and actively innovate according to their own endowment advantages in order to continuously enhance their core competitiveness.
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