经济学人40:远未结束 False summit

 　　Finance and Economics；Spanish banks; False summit;

　　财经；西班牙银行；远未结束；
　　Mark down loans, raise capital, repeat；
　　减少贷款，提高资金，重复此道；
　　Like exhausted 1 climbers nearing the summit only to find a higher peak beyond, Spain's flagging banks face another push for the top. In February the Spanish government hoped at last to put an end to worries about lenders' health when it asked them to set aside billions in provisions and to raise more capital. It also pushed for mergers 2 to reduce capacity and improve margins 3 in an overcrowded market.
　　正如精疲力竭的攀登者接近峰顶时才发现前方还有座更高的山峰一样，西班牙疲弱的银行们面临着又一个困难。2月，西班牙政府要求银行按规定预留数十亿并筹集更多的资金，希望以此最终消除有关银行健康的担忧。政府还促使并购者们在过度拥挤的市场中减小规模，提高利润。
　　These measures provide some comfort. Spain's central bank says that since the middle of 2008, banks have set aside 112 billion Euro(148 billion Dollar) against loan losses. This year it asked them to set aside another 54 billion Euro in provisions and new capital (although this double-counted some write-downs that had already taken place). With these plump cushions, Spain's banks can shrug 4 off losses amounting to about half of their loans to property developers. The IMF now reckons that Spain's largest banks have enough capital to withstand most shocks, although its smaller and weaker ones remain vulnerable.
　　这些举措带来了一些安慰。西班牙央行声称自从2008年中期以来，银行们已经预留了1120亿英镑（1480亿美元）来应对贷款损失。今年央行要求银行们再预留540亿英镑以及新的资金（尽管这样重复计算了有些已经发生的减记金额）。有了这些充足的缓冲，即使贷款损失高达房产开发商贷款总额的一半，西班牙的银行们也不屑一顾。现在国际货币基金组织认为西班牙的大银行们有足够的资金来抵御大部分冲击，尽管其较小较弱的银行依旧脆弱。
　　European economy
　　欧洲经济
　　As a result of the write-downs, regulators have achieved one objective. Few investors 5 now fret 6 about property-development loans blowing up Spanish banks. The worry now is about all the other loans on banks' balance-sheets, against which there are almost no provisions (see chart). Take residential 7 mortgages, which have so far held up remarkably 8 well. Less than 3% of residential mortgages have started to wobble, a surprise in a country where unemployment is close to 25%.
　　监管者已通过减记达到了一个目标。现在很少有投资者担忧房产开发贷款会弄垮西班牙银行。现在的担忧是银行资产负债表上的其它贷款，而这些几乎没有预留资金。（见图表）。以目前为止表现还不错的住房按揭贷款为例，在一个失业率接近25% 的国家，只有不到3%的住房按揭贷款开始出现问题，这令人惊讶。
　　Spanish officials argue that mortgage losses are so low because the loans were mostly issued to creditworthy borrowers with low loan-to-value ratios and no incentive 9 to walk away from their debts. There was almost no subprime lending and little buy-to-let activity. Affordability 10 has been helped by low interest rates.
　　西班牙官员声称抵押贷款损失之所以如此之低是因为贷款大多发放给信誉良好的借款人，他们贷款价值比率较低，没有逃离其债务的动机。西班牙几乎没有次级贷款和随意贷款的行为。低利率也有助于确保支付能力。
　　Investors will take some convincing. “People just do not believe the numbers,” says one analyst 11. “There has been a lot of ‘extending and pretending' or renegotiation of mortgages.” One mechanism 12 by which banks are holding down bad loans is by encouraging struggling customers to switch from normal mortgages to ones where they repay only the interest. The latest data show that terms are being modified on some 26,000 mortgages a month.
　　投资者们将会有些信服。“人们只是不相信这些数字，”一位分析员这么说道。“有很多关于“扩大和假装”或是重新就抵押贷款进行谈判的说法”。银行阻止坏账上升的机制之一，就是鼓励那些苦苦挣扎的客户们从常规抵押贷款转向那种他们只需支付利息的模式。最新的数据显示一个月之内就有26000份抵押贷款条约做了修改。
　　The proportion of wobbly mortgages in Spain looks low when compared with those in Ireland. There the central bank and BlackRock, an asset manager, reckoned that actual lifetime losses on residential mortgages would range from 7% to 12% (meaning that rates of non-performing loans, some of which may in time start to perform again, could be higher still). Even if losses in Spain are far below those in Ireland, banks are still likely to need a lot more capital.
　　与爱尔兰相比，西班牙银行的抵押贷款坏账比例看上去较低。爱尔兰央行以及某资金管理机构BlackRock认为，住房抵押贷款的实际寿命损失在7%至12%之间（意味着不良贷款率可能会更高）。即使西班牙的贷款损失远低于爱尔兰，银行们仍然可能需要更多的资金。
　　Some investors reckon 60 billion-80 billion Euro is required to restore confidence. The IMF is coy about giving a number, but it too thinks more capital is needed, perhaps in asset-management companies set up to look after dud loans. But attracting private capital will be tough. That would pass the problem to the Spanish government, whose finances are under scrutiny 13, or to Europe's bail-out funds, whose firepower is more limited than advertised.
　　有些投资者认为重塑信心需要600-800亿英镑。对此谨慎的国际货币基金组织未给出具体数字，但它也认为需要更多的资金，也许正是那些用来监管不良贷款的资产管理公司需要更多的资金。但是吸引私人资本将会很难。这将会把问题转嫁给已接受财政审查的西班牙政府，或是火力比宣传的更为有限的欧洲纾困基金。