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A bad bank would be a start—but only that—towards cleaning up India’s ailing financial system
糟糕的银行将是一个开始，但唯有如此 才能荡涤印度衰弱的金融系统
If you owe a bank a hundred dollars, it is your problem. If you owe a hundred million, it is the bank’s problem. If you are one of many tycoons borrowing billions to finance dud firms, it is the government’s problem.
如果你欠一家银行一百美元，这是你的问题。 如果你欠了一个亿，这是银行的问题。 如果你是借了数十亿美元为无用公司融资的众多大亨之一，这是政府的问题。
That is roughly the situation India finds itself in today. Its state-owned banks extended credit to companies that are now unable to repay. Like the firms they have injudiciously lent to, many banks are barely solvent. Almost 17% of all loans are estimated to be non-performing;state-controlled banks are trading at a steep discount to book value. After years of denial, India’s government seems belatedly to have grasped the threat to the wider economy. Plans are being floated to create a “bad bank” that would house banks’ dud loans, leaving the original lenders in better shape. The idea is a good one, but it must be properly implemented and is only the starting-point for broader reforms.
这大致就是印度今日所处的情况。 其国有银行提供信贷给一些公司，目前却无力偿付。 像他们不愿意放贷的那些公司一样，许多银行近乎没有偿付能力了。 所有贷款中几乎17％的被估计为不良; 国家控制的银行交易价格远远低于其账面价值。 经过多年否认之后，印度政府似乎才慢腾腾地体会到它对更广泛的经济构成威胁。 创建一个“坏账银行”的方案正在浮现出来。它将存放银行的不良贷款，使得原贷款人状况更佳。 这个想法不错，但它必须得到适当执行，而且也只是更广泛改革的起点。
The bad-loan mess has been years in the making. India skirted the financial bust of 2007-08, but then complacency ensued. Banks went on to finance large-scale projects—anything from mines and roads to power plants and steel mills— which often ended in disappointment. Over 40% of loans made to corporate India are stuck in firms unable to repay even the interest on them, according to Credit Suisse, a bank. The result is a “twin balance-sheet problem”, whereby both banks and firms are financially overstretched. Corporate credit is shrinking for the first time in two decades
坏账麻烦多年来一直在生成之中。印度避开了2007 - 08年的金融危机，但随后就志得意满。银行继续为大型项目融资，从矿山到公路，从发电厂到钢铁厂，而这些项目往往以令人失望的方式终结。根据瑞士信贷银行的数据，向印度公司提供的贷款中超过40％深陷在甚至无法偿还利息的公司。结果是一个“双生资产负债表问题”，即银行和企业同时在财务上过度扩张。公司信用在二十年来首次萎缩。
In an ideal world, the banks would write down the value of the loans. The resulting losses would require fresh funds from shareholders. India is far from that ideal. It takes over four years to foreclose on a loan (a newish bankruptcy law should help). The government is the main shareholder of the worst affected banks, and has been reluctant to inject more cash. Bankers themselves are afraid to deal with loans pragmatically, because that often gets mistaken for cronyism.
在理想世界里，银行会减低账面价值。 由此产生的损失将需要股东注入新的资金。 但印度远不是那么理想。 它需要四年时间来取消抵押品赎回权（新的破产法应该有帮助）。 政府是受影响最严重的银行的主要股东，而且不愿意注入更多的现金。 银行家们自己害怕如实地地处置贷款，因为这样做经常被误认为是任人唯亲。
Clean energy needed
需要清洁能源
The solution so far has been to pretend nothing much is wrong. The banks have rolled bad loans over, hoping that growth would eventually make things right. This is a poor strategy, as anyone who followed Japan in the 1990s and Italy since the financial crisis well knows. It is only a matter of time before the banks’ difficulties derail India’s economic prospects. Hence talk of setting up a bad bank to sort out the mess.
迄今为止的解决方案就是假装没犯什么错。银行将不良贷款拖延期，希望增长最终会使情况转好。这不是一个高明的策略，因为任何跟踪过1990年代的日本和金融危机以来意大利表现的人都应该很好理解。银行之困使印度的经济前景脱离正常的轨道只是一个时间问题。因此，讨论设立一个坏账银行以解决乱局。
Bad banks have been used with success in the past—in Sweden in the 1990s, for example, and in Spain in recent years. But if they are to work, candour and cash are both needed. The candour is required to assign a realistic value to banks’ soured loans. Indian lenders must be compelled, and quickly, to sell loans to the bad bank even at a hefty discount to face value, no matter how much it may wound their pride or dent their profits. That is where the cash comes in. When those write-downs eat up capital, the state must be ready to make up the shortfall even if it means borrowing more to do so.
坏账银行有过成功的先例。例如20世纪90年代在瑞典，以及近年来在西班牙。但如果他们要有所成就，公正和现金都必不可少。公正意味着要为银行坏账给定一个现实的估值。必须迫使印度贷款人快速，向坏账银行出售不良贷款，即便相对面值给予极大的优惠。无论这会给他们的荣光带来多大的伤害，也不论多大程度上削弱他们的利润。这就是现金的来源。当那些减值吞噬资本之时，国家必须准备弥补差额，即使这意味着借款更多。
That is only a start, however. A bad bank could resolve this crisis. But to make future ones less likely, broader reforms are needed. Some are under way. Political interference (loans to a minister’s buddy, say) and dysfunctional governance (many bank bosses get only one-year stints at the helm, for example) are less of a problem than they once were. But lenders should not be instruments of the state. Private investors should be allowed to play a bigger role in cleaned-up banks, even if that means the government has to give up majority control.
但这仅仅是一个开始。坏账银行可以解决这场危机。但是为了未来不再犯类似的错误，需要进行更广泛的改革。一些措施正在推进中。政治干预（比如给部长的密友贷款）和功能失调的治理（例如，许多银行老板只能掌权一年）相比以前不再是一个问题。但贷款人不应成为国家的工具。应当允许私人投资者在清理后的银行体系中发挥更大的作用，即使这意味着政府必须放弃大部分控制权。
India’s “promoters”, as the founders and owners of big businesses are known, also need to be reined in further. Tycoons have the upper hand in negotiations with their lenders because they know that red tape, patronage and antiquated legal systems make it all but impossible to seize the assets of defaulting firms. In effect, they cannot be replaced at the helm. Resolving this imbalance would make it more likely that dud loans are a headache for banks and borrowers, not for the finance minister. It is good that policymakers appear to be waking up to the magnitude of India’s banking problem. Whether they appreciate the scale of the solution is less clear
印度的“推动者”，众所周知的大企业创始人和所有者，也需要进一步被掌控。商业大亨们在与他们的贷款人谈判中占上风，因为他们知道官样文章，庇护和过时的法律制度使得没有可能获取违约公司的资产。实际上，它们不能在掌舵处被替换。解决这种不平衡后，不良贷款将令银行和借款人头疼不已，而不是财政部长的。政策制定者似乎正在意识到印度银行问题的严重程度，这是好的方面。他们是否清楚解决方案的规模还不是非常明了。