Summary
The weak link in China’s financialized economy is the country’s Wealth Management Products. They are short in duration, widely sold by formal and informal institutions, and are invested in important institutions including corporate bonds and smaller banks. We think a run on WMPs is quite likely as banks face a rising inability to pay interest on these WMPs, which exceed Rmb26 trillion. Demographic analysis of their ownership structure suggests these will become the explicit responsibility of state banks. We estimate Rmb 19 trillion of Rmb 26 trillion of WMPS will end up on bank balance sheets. WMP Defaults-Demographics