EC Wednesday’s Worry – Will Alibaba Destroy The World?

“The Word ends not with a bang, but a whimper.”  

As TS Elliot noted:  “Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act falls the shadow.”  Whether or not Elliot was referring to “shadow banking” in 1925, 100 years later his words certainly ring true as “Vampire Internet Funds” like Alibaba’s Yu’E Bao are draining liquidity out of China’s financial system at an alarming rate. 

In less than on year, 81M people have opened Yu’E Bao accounts at an average of $1,000 each, totaling $80Bn of deposits.  Compare that with only 67M investors in China’s entire stock market – after 23 years of operation!  Yu’E Bao gives depositors 6% interest and allows the funds to be used at any time, making payments by smart phone or straight withdrawals anywhere in the World vs 0.35% in a Chinese bank, subject to all sorts of restrictions.  

Deposit money draining away from the banks is freaking China out and it won’t be long before it starts spreading (because it makes perfect sense for depositors) and suddenly we will end up with either a global liquidity crunch OR banks will have to begin paying fair market rates for deposits, which would also lead to a major crisis as rates rise sharply.

There’s already been a run on the Jiangsu Sheyahg Rural Commercial Bank (picture above, yesterday) and you can ignore it if you want to – the way you ignored Northern Trust in 2007 or the Icelandic Banks that same year – who cares, right?  It’s too far away to affect you, isn’t it?  Our bankers are far too smart to get caught up in that kind of mess, aren’t they?  

Legislators, Bankers, Government Officials and, of course, Billionaires were invited to discuss this issue at the National (rich) People’s Congress in Beijing (and let he who has a Congressperson not in the top 10% cast the first stone!) where Chinese Banksters, ironically, called for MORE REGULATION.