【经济学人】银行资本规则改革丨2017.01.07丨总第784期

SOME banks find existing capital requirements too taxing. To no one’s surprise, on December 23rd Monte dei Paschi di Siena, at present Italy’s fourth-biggest bank, asked the Italian state for help, having failed to raise from the private sector €5bn ($5.2bn) in capital demanded by the European Central Bank before the year’s end. Three days later Monte dei Paschi said that the ECB had redone its sums—and concluded that the stricken lender faced an even bigger shortfall, of €8.8bn.
一些银行发现现存的资本要求过于繁重。意料之中的是，在12月23日，日前意大利第四大银行西雅那银行向当局政府寻求帮助，主要是由于没能在年底之前按照欧洲央行的要求向私企筹措到50亿欧元资金（约52亿美元）。三天过后，西雅那银行表示，欧洲央行已经重算了一次总数，并且得出结论，这个备受打击的借贷方面对多达88亿欧元的巨额亏空。

• Taxing ['tæksɪŋ] : 费力的，繁重的

• Redo [riː'duː] :重做

• Striken ['strɪk(ə)n]：adj.受灾的; 被打击的; 受挫的; 患病的

• Shortfall  ['ʃɔːtfɔːl] :差额，缺少

Plenty of other European banks—in far better nick than poor old Monte dei Paschi, which is overloaded with bad loans—are grumbling that they too may eventually have to find more capital. They have spent years plumping up cushions that the financial crisis showed to be worryingly thin, but fear that proposed adjustments to Basel 3, the latest global standards, will require more. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which draws up the standards, had hoped to agree on the revisions by the end of 2016. It’s not there yet: on January 3rd an imminent meeting of central-bank governors and supervisors, to approve the changes, was postponed.

欧洲的其他众多银行，比起被不良贷款压垮的破旧不堪的西雅那银行来说，情况要好得多。他们正在抱怨，他们最终可能也会不得不去寻求更多的资金。这些银行用了很多年来寻填资本衬垫，而这场金融却证明他们准备的衬垫太薄了，它们非常担心最新全球标准巴塞尔协议的调整预案会要求更多。草拟这套标准的巴塞尔银行监管委员会，一直希望到2016年年底能够达成修订方针。可是，这并没有实现：原定于1月3日为了通过这些方针变动，央行监管人员召开的紧急会议被搁浅了。

• Plump up [plʌmp] :变丰满，使鼓起

• Imminent ['ɪmɪnənt]：adj. 迫在眉睫; （通常指不愉快的事） 即将发生的; 迫切的，危急的; 逼近的;

The amendments are intended to reduce the variation in banks’ own calculations of risk-weighted assets (RWAs), largely by restricting their use of in-house models. Under Basel rules, the ratio of a bank’s equity to its RWAs are a key gauge of its strength: if lenders are too sanguine about risk, their estimated RWAs will be too low and their reported capital ratios misleadingly high.

这些修改旨在减少银行计算风险加权资产的异变性，重点在于限制使用内部模型。巴塞尔协议3中规定，银行的风险加权资产是主要的指标：如果贷方对风险非常乐观，其预估的风险加权资产会很低，同时他们报道出来的资本比例会让人误以为极高。

• Risk-weighted asset:风险加权资产

• Gauge [geɪdʒ]：评估; 测量的标准或范围; 尺度，标准; 测量仪器;

• sanguine ['sæŋgwɪn]：adj. 乐观的，充满希望的; 面色红润的; 血红色的;

The main obstacle to an agreement is the committee’s proposal of an “output floor”—a lower bound for banks’ RWAs—calculated as a percentage of the figure churned out by a “standardised” method. （读者试译句）The higher the percentage, the tighter the standard: a first version of the proposals suggested 60-90%; a failed compromise last month proposed gradually raising it to 75% over four years, starting in 2021.

（期待您的翻译，明天会有针对这句话的长难句解析哟~）百分比越高，则标准越严格：这个建议最初的数据版本是60%-90%，这个版本上个月并没有得到各方同意，委员会打算在自2021年开始的四年内逐步增加到75%。

American officials like the floor, believing that it limits banks’ ability to play games with the rules. European banks and officials don’t. Both the Association of German Banks and the Bundesbank, for example, want no floor at all. They argue that internal models make capital calculations more, not less, sensitive to risk.

美国官方认为，这个数据基底限制了银行玩弄规则。而欧洲官方与银行却不这样认为。比如说，德国银行业协会与德国联邦银行均不希望数据基底（出现）。他们辩称，内部模型计算出来的资本可以更敏锐的规避风险，而并不是迟钝。

America’s banks would be little affected; several European lenders could be stung. That is partly because America has already installed floors in its domestic rules—and, Americans would add, its banks shaped up faster after the crisis. Europeans retort that it also reflects transatlantic differences in business models. European lenders tend to keep more residential mortgages on their books than American banks, which often sell them on; they also lend more to companies and for project finance. All this may carry heavier risk-weights under the revised rules.

美国银行几乎不会受到影响，不过几家欧洲贷方可能受到波及。部分原因是美国已经在国内规则中设置了数据基底，同时美国人在金融危机过后转变的更快。欧洲人提出反驳，这也许映射了美国商业模式中的不同之处。欧洲贷方更愿意在账面上保留更多的住房抵押贷款，而美国银行则会选择卖掉；欧洲贷方也乐意借更多钱给企业，以及发放更多的项目贷款。在修正规则下来看，所有这些可能会导致更为严重的风险加权资产问题。

Officials are still aiming for agreement in the first quarter of 2017. That probably means fixing a floor, but how high? Omar Keenan and Kinner Lakhani, of Deutsche Bank, estimate that a 75% floor would increase the RWAs (and hence reduce the capital ratios) of 26 of the 34 listed European banks they cover; at 60%, the number drops to ten, mainly in the Netherlands and Nordic countries.

官员们仍希望在2017年的第一季度里达成一致意见。这也就意味着要固定一个数据基底，但是数据是多少呢？德意志银行的奥马尔·基南及金纳拉估计数据基底如果是75%的话，会增加34个欧洲上市银行中的26个银行的风险加权资产（也就减少资本比率）；如果是60%，那么就将降到10个银行，且这些银行主要集中在荷兰和北欧国家。

Phasing in the rules would give banks time to adapt. Under the timetable envisaged by the committee, they would have until 2025—almost two decades after the world’s financial system started to crack. If the stand-off continues, the repairs will take even longer to complete.

调整规则的停滞时期将使得银行去适应（各种变化）。在巴塞尔银行监管委员会设想的时间表中，他们将会在世界金融体系几乎破裂的20年后，也就是到2025年才会修复（金融体系）。如果就这样僵持下去，那么彻底修复金融体系需要的时间将会更长。

• stand-off 平衡; 冷淡; 僵持

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