原文標題：
Banks
The prize of size
Why America will soon see a wave of bank mergers
銀行
規(guī)模的好處
為什么美國很快就會出現(xiàn)銀行合并浪潮？

Cheap valuations and a stricter rulebook point towards more consolidation
廉價的估值和更嚴格的規(guī)則導(dǎo)致更多銀行的合并

[Paragraph 1]
THE TROUBLE facing many of America’s banks is coming into sharp relief.
美國許多銀行面臨的問題引人注目。

After the failures of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank in March, behemoths such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America attracted deposits despite paying minimal interest, according to earnings reports released since April 14th.
在 3 月份硅谷銀行和簽字銀行倒閉后，根據(jù) 4 月 14 日以來發(fā)布的財報，盡管摩根大通和美國銀行等巨頭支付的利息很低，但仍吸引了存款。

Many small and medium-sized banks, by contrast, face increasing competition for customers and rising funding costs.
相比之下，許多中小型銀行面臨著日益激烈的客戶競爭和不斷上升的融資成本。

On April 18th Western Alliance, a lender with $71bn of assets, reported that it had lost 11% of its deposits this year.
4 月 18 日，擁有 710 億美元資產(chǎn)的阿萊恩斯西部銀行報告稱，今年它的存款減少了11%。

To tempt deposits back, banks will have to pay more for them; in the meantime many have turned to temporary loans, including from the Federal Reserve, that incur today’s high rates of interest.
為了吸引存款回來，銀行將不得不付出更多的成本；與此同時，許多銀行已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)向臨時貸款，包括從美聯(lián)儲貸款，這些貸款導(dǎo)致了今天的高利率。

Yet lots of banks’ assets are low-yielding and cannot be sold without crystallising losses. A big profits squeeze is coming.
然而，許多銀行的資產(chǎn)收益較低，無法在不產(chǎn)生損失的情況下出售。一場巨大的利潤擠壓即將到來。

[Paragraph 2]
More banks were due to report earnings after we published this leader.
我們發(fā)布本篇社論文章后，有更多的銀行將公布收益。

But the market has already made a judgment: America’s banks are worth only about their combined book value, having traded at nearly a 40% premium at the start of the year.
但市場已經(jīng)做出判斷：美國的銀行只值他們的總賬面價值，年初時的交易溢價近 40%。

The likely result of their low valuations, combined with a landscape in which size matters, is a tried-and-tested response to banking crises over the past four decades: consolidation.
它們的低估值，加上規(guī)模的重要性，可能導(dǎo)致對過去40年來銀行業(yè)危機久經(jīng)考驗的反應(yīng)：整合。

[Paragraph 3]
America has 4,700 banks and savings institutions, or one for every 71,000 residents.
美國有 4,700 家銀行和儲蓄機構(gòu)，即每7.1萬居民就有一家銀行。

To observers in the EU, which has only one bank for every 85,000 people, that seems excessive.
對于每 8.5萬居民才有一家銀行的歐盟觀察家來說，美國的銀行似乎過多了。

Yet it is a historical low: in 1984, when comparable data begin and the population was much smaller, there were nearly four times as many institutions.
然而，這是一個歷史最低點：1984 年，那年可比數(shù)據(jù)開始出現(xiàn)且人口少得多時，銀行的數(shù)量幾乎是現(xiàn)在的4倍。

Since then the industry has seen almost continuous consolidation.
從那時起，該行業(yè)幾乎一直在整合。

The biggest wave of mergers came after a long-running crisis among savings and loan associations (S&Ls), lenders specialising in mortgages, reached its apex in the late 1980s.
最大的合并浪潮發(fā)生在儲蓄和貸款協(xié)會 (S&L) 的長期危機之后，這些專門從事抵押貸款的貸方在 1980 年代末達到頂峰。

It left many carcasses over which stronger banks could pick.
頂峰之后是哀鴻遍野，實力更強的銀行可以從中挑選合并。

Rule changes, such as the lifting of restrictions on banking across state lines, also encouraged banks to grow in size.
規(guī)則也發(fā)生變化，例如取消對跨州銀行業(yè)務(wù)的限制，也鼓勵銀行擴大規(guī)模。

[Paragraph 4]
There are several parallels between then and now.
那時和現(xiàn)在有幾個相似之處。

Many S&Ls went bust because their funding costs rose as interest rates surged, while their mortgage-loan books brought in low, fixed rates of interest.
許多抵押貸款機構(gòu)破產(chǎn)，因為他們的資金成本隨著利率的飆升而上升，而它們的抵押貸款合同只帶來了較低的固定利率。

At one point nearly two-thirds of S&Ls would have been insolvent had their assets been marked to market.
曾幾何時，如果抵押貸款機構(gòu)的資產(chǎn)按市價計價，將近2/3的機構(gòu)會資不抵債。

Although the balance-sheet problems of today’s banks are less severe, they are similar in nature.
盡管現(xiàn)今銀行的資產(chǎn)負債表問題沒有那么嚴重，但它們在本質(zhì)上是相似的。

At the end of 2022 more than 400 banks with nearly $4trn in combined assets had unrealised losses on their securities portfolios worth at least half of their core equity capital.
在2022年底，400多家擁有近4萬億美元總資產(chǎn)的銀行，其證券組合的未實現(xiàn)損失至少占其核心股本的一半。

Include their fixed-rate loan books, and possible losses to come on lending against commercial property, and the hole would be greater still.
包括他們的固定利率貸款賬目，以及商業(yè)地產(chǎn)貸款可能帶來的損失，這個漏洞會更大。

[Paragraph 5]
At the same time, smaller banks are at risk of losing the regulatory advantages they now enjoy.
與此同時，小型銀行有可能會失去它們現(xiàn)有的監(jiān)管優(yōu)勢。

When calculating their regulatory capital, banks with less than $700bn in assets typically do not have to mark to market even the securities that they class as “available for sale” and which are meant to be a source of quick cash in an emergency.
在計算其監(jiān)管資本時，資產(chǎn)少于 7000 億美元的銀行通常不必將 "可供出售 "的證券計入市場，這些證券存在的意義是在緊急情況下能成為快速現(xiàn)金來源。

Those smaller than $250bn are exempted from the strictest liquidity rules, stress tests and failure planning.
那些規(guī)模小于 2500 億美元的銀行不受最嚴格的流動性規(guī)則、壓力測試和破產(chǎn)計劃的約束。

This light-touch regulatory regime is now being reviewed by domestic and international regulators.
這種寬松的監(jiān)管制度目前正在接受國內(nèi)和國際監(jiān)管機構(gòu)的審查。

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which writes the global rulebook, is studying the lessons to be learned from the failure of SVB, whose depositors were bailed out even though it was too small and domestically focused to be subject to the strictest rules.
編寫全球規(guī)則手冊的巴塞爾銀行監(jiān)管委員會正在研究硅谷銀行破產(chǎn)的教訓(xùn)，盡管硅谷銀行的規(guī)模太小，而且主要集中在美國國內(nèi)，不受最嚴格規(guī)則的約束，但它的儲戶得到了救助。

In Washington, an easing of the rules for midsized banks by Congress and the Fed in 2018 and 2019 is under fresh scrutiny.
在華盛頓，國會和美聯(lián)儲在 2018 年和 2019 年對中型銀行的寬松規(guī)定，正受到新的審查。

[Paragraph 6]
The most important changes to the market’s structure are likely to be among banks which are close to significant regulatory thresholds.
市場結(jié)構(gòu)最重要的變化可能是在那些接近重要監(jiān)管門檻的銀行中。

There are 20 banks which are between $100bn and $250bn in size. If the penalty for crossing the $250bn threshold is reduced, many may find it advantageous to merge.
有 20 家銀行的規(guī)模在 1000 億美元到 2500 億美元之間。如果超過 2500 億美元門檻的罰款減少，許多銀行可能會發(fā)現(xiàn)合并是有利的。

Doing so would allow them to spread the growing costs of complying with regulation over a bigger business, while making it even more likely that their depositors would be bailed out in a crisis.
銀行合并將使他們能夠?qū)⒁蜃袷乇O(jiān)管而增加的成本分攤到更大的業(yè)務(wù)上，同時使他們的儲戶更有可能在危機中獲得救助。

Regulators would probably look favourably on tie-ups that swallowed up zombie banks which might otherwise “gamble for resurrection” by taking big risks—a tactic that made the S&L crisis in the 1980s much worse.
監(jiān)管機構(gòu)可能會樂意看到那些吞并僵尸銀行的合作，否則僵尸銀行可能會通過冒大風(fēng)險“為活命搏一搏”——這種策略使 1980 年代的儲貸危機危機更加嚴重。

If so, then the latest crisis will provide the latest impetus for banks to get bigger.
如果是這樣，那么最近的危機將為銀行做大提供最新的動力。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞匯量765左右）
原文出自：2023年4月22日《The Economist》Leaders版塊

精讀筆記來源于：自由英語之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene本文編輯校對: Irene
僅供個人英語學(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補充資料】（來自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
儲蓄貸款協(xié)會（Savings and loan associations）是一種金融機構(gòu)，專門接受客戶存款并用這些資金提供抵押貸款給購房者。S&Ls通常在儲蓄賬戶上提供較高的利率，并在抵押貸款上提供較低的利率，相比商業(yè)銀行更具吸引力。它們最初是以互助組織的形式注冊的，意味著儲戶也是S&L的成員，擁有所有權(quán)利。然而，許多S&Ls已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)楣煞葜平Y(jié)構(gòu)。該行業(yè)多年來經(jīng)歷了重大的變革和整合，但S&Ls仍繼續(xù)在為個人和社區(qū)提供住房金融服務(wù)扮演著重要角色。

未實現(xiàn)損失Unrealised losses是指投資組合中某些資產(chǎn)的市場價值下跌，但這些資產(chǎn)尚未被出售或清算時所產(chǎn)生的損失。在某些情況下，可能會在未來重新升值并抵消這些損失。這與已實現(xiàn)損失（Realized losses）不同，已實現(xiàn)損失是指資產(chǎn)已經(jīng)被出售或清算，且以低于購買價格的價格進行了交易，從而導(dǎo)致了明確的損失。

巴塞爾銀行監(jiān)管委員會（Basel Committee on Banking Supervision）是由全球各國銀行監(jiān)管機構(gòu)組成的一個國際組織，總部設(shè)在瑞士巴塞爾。其目的是制定銀行業(yè)監(jiān)管政策和標準，以確保全球金融體系的穩(wěn)定性和安全性。該委員會的主要任務(wù)之一是推動并制定《巴塞爾協(xié)議》（Basel Accords），這些協(xié)議規(guī)定了銀行的資本充足率要求和風(fēng)險管理標準等內(nèi)容，成為全球銀行監(jiān)管的基礎(chǔ)。

【重點句子】（3個）
Many small and medium-sized banks, by contrast, face increasing competition for customers and rising funding costs.
相比之下，許多中小型銀行面臨著日益激烈的客戶競爭和不斷上升的融資成本。

At the same time, smaller banks are at risk of losing the regulatory advantages they now enjoy.
與此同時，小型銀行有可能會失去它們現(xiàn)有的監(jiān)管優(yōu)勢。

Doing so would allow them to spread the growing costs of complying with regulation over a bigger business, while making it even more likely that their depositors would be bailed out in a crisis.
銀行合并將使他們能夠?qū)⒁蜃袷乇O(jiān)管而增加的成本分攤到更大的業(yè)務(wù)上，同時使他們的儲戶更有可能在危機中獲得救助。