Fitch Report 20100714 on Chinese Banks

Fitch Special Report 20100714
Chinese Banks Informal Securitisation Increasingly Distorting Credit Data
http://www.scribd.com/doc/34332751/Fitch-Special-Report-20100714

"Fitch Ratings cautions that lending has not slowed nearly as much as official data suggests, due to the increasing amount of credit being shifted off of Chinese banks’ balance sheets via informal securitisation (ie the re‐packaging of loans investments into products for sale to investors).
Fitch believes the vast majority of these transactions are not publicly disclosed by Chinese banks, and few, if any, traces of the loans remain in financial statements. The growing popularity of this activity is increasingly distorting credit growth figures at an institutional and system level, resulting in pervasive understatement of credit growth and credit exposure. Consequently, Chinese banks’ loan loss reserves and capital are more exposed to credit losses than current data suggests"