Source: financial Times

After nearly half a year of continuous declineFreespinskeepwhatyouwinnodeposit2022The scale of bank financial management finally "regained the lost ground".

In April this year, the survival scale of bank wealth management products rebounded sharply, with an increase of more than 2 trillion yuan a month. And since May, the rising trend of financial management scale is still continuing.

"with the recent recovery of the financial management market, the rate of return on investment has risen," said Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of China Merchants.

From the perspective of market allocation strategy, with the reduction of high-interest deposits by banks and the rectification of "manual interest", the allocation of financial products to short-term bonds has been significantly enhanced, and the scale of newly issued products has increased significantly.

The financial management market ushered in a scale increase of 2 trillion yuan

In April, the wealth management market rebounded sharply, reaching its highest level since 2023.

According to Puyi standard data, as of the end of April, the survival scale of bank wealth management products is 28.Freespinskeepwhatyouwinnodeposit20220.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.51081067 trillion yuan from the previous month, with an increase of more than 2 trillion yuan, reaching the highest level since 2023.

From the perspective of product categories, fixed income and cash management products mainly undertake the return of deposits. Data show that as of April 30, the survival scale of the above two types of financial products was 19.3 trillion yuan and 8.6 trillion yuan respectively, an increase of 1.59 trillion yuan and 910 billion yuan respectively compared with the end of last month.

A reporter from the Financial Times noted that since the beginning of May, the survival scale of bank wealth management products has further continued the upward trend in April. According to Puyi standard data, as of May 12, the latest survival scale of wealth management products was 28.8 trillion yuan, an increase of 225.59 billion yuan compared with the end of April.

Talking about the reasons for the sharp increase in the scale of bank financial management in April, a number of industry experts said that this is not only related to the reduction of bank deposit interest rates and the reduction of high-cost liabilities, but also the performance of the wealth management market itself is an important factor.

"the impact of the 'net break' in 2022 has passed, banks and wealth management subsidiaries have generally adopted a more robust investment strategy, and the attractiveness of bank financial management itself has been restored." Yang Guozhong, a researcher at Puyi Standards, said in an interview with the Financial Times that in addition, the release of the new "National Nine articles" has also encouraged some additional funds to go into riskier hybrid and equity products.

As for the trend of the scale of financial management this year, the research team of China Merchants Securities expects that due to the reduction of deposit interest rates and keeping low, the scale of financial management is expected to maintain steady growth, which may exceed 30 trillion yuan by the end of 2024.

"compared with traditional deposits, wealth management products show great advantages in terms of yield and flexibility, and the recent incremental funds are also mainly from this." Wang Yuxuan, a researcher on Puyi standards, believes that whether the scale of financial management can really exceed 30 trillion yuan this year has a lot to do with whether the deposit interest rate can be maintained at a low level for a long time.

Short-term financial products are favored

Under the catalysis of the reduction of deposit interest rates and the turn of the bond market, many investors are looking for alternatives to deposits in the bank wealth management market.

A reporter from the Financial Times noted that in April this year, pure debt products represented by medium-and short-term debt funds were favored by investors, short-term wealth management products were also very popular, and the scale of newly issued products increased.

"Financial management for 'high-interest' deposits, non-standard and other assets availability decline, may have to passively increase the proportion of bond allocation, especially short-term bonds." Huatai Securities mentioned in the latest research report that the allocation pressure of financial management will also be transmitted to monetary funds and short-term debt funds, bringing short-term allocation demand.

According to Puyi standard data, the size of new short-term wealth management products was 403.383 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 43.537 billion yuan over the fourth quarter of 2023. Among them, the product with a duration of "3-6 months" has the largest new scale, an increase of 53.482 billion yuan compared with the fourth quarter of 2023.

In the view of industry experts, recently, investors generally prefer short-term wealth management products, mainly because such products strike a balance between returns and liquidity, which helps investors to better optimize asset allocation according to their own conditions and investment goals. get enough margin of safety.

"generally speaking, the shorter the duration of fixed-rate bonds, the less sensitive they are to interest rate fluctuations." Wang Jie, a researcher at Puyi Standards, told the Financial Times, "in order to guard against the potential risk of a correction in the bond market, some investors choose to appropriately reduce the duration of their portfolios." At the same time, in order to control the withdrawal of products and meet the needs of the market, financial companies are also constantly strengthening the allocation of short-term, highly liquid assets. "

However, there are also industry insiders reminded to pay attention to the market operation risks brought about by the increase in the allocation of short and medium-term debt. "the massive increase in the allocation of medium-and short-end debt base in financial management at this stage will also lead to an increase in congestion in short-and medium-end securities transactions, and bond yields are at historic lows. The expected game between public funds and financial management may increase the potential volatility risk of the market," said Dong Wenxin, an analyst at Everbright Securities.

"at present, the pressure of 'asset shortage' in the wealth management market is not reduced, and the scarcity of high-yielding assets brings a lot of income pressure to wealth management products, and a number of bank wealth management companies have lowered their performance benchmarks for newly issued products." According to Puyi standard analysis, in addition, some bond yields are already relatively low, and it is more difficult to obtain capital gains on the assets allocated by newly issued financial products in the later stage, superimposing the background of the downward market interest rate center. The yield of financial products may be down in the future.