Regardless of whether it is the Royal Bank or the Empire State Development Bank, although one of these two banks belongs to the Royal Assets Department and the other belongs to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, and they are both wholly-owned holdings, they naturally have a strong official background.
Therefore, in many cases, these two banks had to serve the government. For example, in the early years when the central government was short of money, they were always recalled when issuing national bonds. However, in recent years, the Tang Empire has rarely issued bonds.
The national debt is up.
But it doesn’t mean that they don’t need to support the development of the empire. When the empire wants to do something big and is short of money, they need to step forward. For example, for the water conservancy project back then, the empire will not be able to come up with so much money for a while, so
Many of the required payments are advanced by these two banks, with no interest.
The same is true for subsequent national transportation projects and a large number of official road construction projects, and the interest rates on loans are very low.
In addition to central projects, most of the infrastructure projects of many local governments also come from these two banks for loans.
At the same time, in order to support the development of industry and commerce, especially the development of specific high-paying technology industries, the empire will also ask these two banks to cooperate and provide a large number of low-interest loans to enterprises.
These are all political tasks shouldered by these two banks.
However, in essence, they are still just commercial banks. These two banks themselves are official banks, but the competition with each other is still very fierce.
More importantly, they also face competition from many private and some local official banks.
As of the 23rd year of Xuanping, there were more than 300 commercial banks registered in the Tang Empire. Just looking at this number of banks, you can know how fierce the competition in the banking industry is.
There are more than 300 banks. In addition to the special Royal Bank, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises wholly owns Imperial Development Bank and Datang Nanyang Bank. However, Datang Nanyang Bank was only established two years ago, and its main business is
It is aimed at the overseas trade market. In addition to opening branches in several major domestic coastal trade cities, they have also opened branches in Ryukyu Province, Fuso Islands, Luzon Province, Banten Province, Malacca State, Gohe State and other places, so this
Nanyang Bank has little relationship with the domestic banking industry.
In addition, there are more than 20 banks with an official background, that is, local official banks that have been established in the past ten years. These local banks are generally funded by local finance, and their shares and income belong to the local finance. Of course,
, just like other local government-run enterprises, the management power of these local banks is not in the hands of the local finance, but in the hands of the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises.
These local government-run banks vary in size, including the relatively large Bank of Shanghai and Jinling Bank. However, even these two relatively large banks, their business scope is generally limited to the local area. For example, Bank of Shanghai, etc.
Although the volume is not small, it mainly relies on Songjiang Prefecture, and at most covers several other prefectures on Jiangnan Road, Yangzhou across the river, and Hangzhou in the south.
Therefore, although these local government-run banks are not too small and most of them are not bad in size, they still have relatively large limitations.
What is truly more competitive are actually a large number of private banks. These private banks range from large to small. Among them, Zhili Textile Bank, the largest, is the third largest bank in the country. Its branches are not limited to Zhili.
There are four provinces and one prefecture, but they are spread all over the country.
Of course, it is impossible for them to achieve comprehensive and undifferentiated coverage like Royal Bank and Development Bank. The above two banks can be found in basically every county.
Although Zhili Textile Bank has also achieved nationwide coverage, its focus is mainly on areas with relatively good economies. For some remote places, it basically only opens branches in cities at the state capital level.
In addition to the large-scale Zhili Textile Bank, there are also many medium-sized banks that are not weak, such as Northern Bank, Guangsheng Bank, etc. Although they seem to be just one side, they have great influence in the local area. Large banks, such as Northern Bank, rely on Tianjin and cover many northern provinces. Shandong and Hebei are their bases.
Guangsheng Bank also relies on Guangzhou, covering Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Hunan and other places.
As for small-scale private banks, there are even more, more than 200 in total, and these banks can survive because they naturally have their special advantages.
There are more than 300 domestic banks competing with each other, and the methods are quite brutal. Among them, the most significant change is the deposit interest rate.
You must know that when the Royal Bank first opened, people not only received no interest when saving money, but also had to pay handling fees.
But later, as the number of banks increased, competition became more intense. In order to attract deposits, some banks actually offered interest on deposits, and then almost all banks quickly followed suit.
Finally, now, when you deposit money in a bank, not only do you pay no handling fees, but you can also receive deposit interest. Although the deposit interest is very low, it is better than nothing.
With the pressure on deposit interest, these banks will naturally pay more attention to interest income when issuing loans.
Even the Royal Bank and the Imperial Development Bank, which are large in size and carry political missions, have to be more cautious.
Especially for railway construction loans, these loans are not short-term loans of one or two years, but long-term loans of ten years or more. If they don't charge interest, or even charge less interest, they will have nothing to do.
Today's commercial banks' main income is from loan interest. Without interest income, how can they support so many employees, how can they turn over profits, and more importantly, how can they pay interest to depositors?
Therefore, even for official projects provided by the Royal Bank and the Imperial Bank of Development, for example, railway loans, interest will still be charged. Although the interest rate is much lower than that of ordinary commercial loans, it cannot support the large scale. This loan It's tens of millions, even if the interest is lower, it's still a huge burden for the railway company.
But now, Chen Lifu said that part of the railway loan interest could be subsidized by the local finance of Guangdong.
To put it bluntly, banks lend money to the Railway Corporation to build railways, and Guangdong's local finance is responsible for sharing a large part of the interest expenses.
After hearing about this subsidy plan, people from Datang Railway Corporation were tempted.
Building a railway these days often costs millions or even tens of millions. It is impossible to build a railway without borrowing money.
However, the interest expense of borrowing money to build the railway is an extremely heavy burden. The annual interest expense of Datang Railway Corporation is a huge number.
Every time they see the huge loan figures and interest payments on the books, it is enough to make any senior official of the railway company wary, fearing that the capital chain will break and cause a big problem.
Now Chen Lifu has proposed that the interest can be subsidized, which is a very tempting suggestion.
You know, don't underestimate the interest. If you really add it up, it can amount to millions of dollars or more.
In addition to the interest subsidy, Chen Lifu also made another promise, that is, construction incentives, starting from now, for a period of three years.
If it is completed and opened to traffic on schedule and is inspected and accepted, a reward will be given, and an additional reward will be added for each day in advance.
And this reward number is also not small!
Chen Lifu proposed such a plan, which made the executives of Datang Railway Corporation, no, I should say the senior officials, all opened their eyes wide.
The Guangdong-Jiangxi Railway was originally in their plan, but they didn't plan to build it so early. Now Chen Lifu proposed to use subsidies to let them build it in advance, which made them a little unable to turn around at the beginning.
The local government subsidized us millions, just to let us build the railway? They were tempted, but they didn't dare to agree immediately. This matter was a bit sensitive and had political risks.
Faced with Chen Lifu's suggestion of where to put it, the Railway Corporation did not dare to make an unauthorized decision because they had never done this kind of thing before and were relatively sensitive.
Local finance directly subsidizes commercial companies. This kind of thing has never happened in Datang before. Even though the Railway Corporation is an enterprise of the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, it is still a commercial company. At most, it is just a little special.
Not to mention the subsequent construction subsidies.
If you are not careful, you may get into big trouble.
In the end, the report was reported to their nominal superior, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. The people in the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises also felt a little weird and did not dare to make decisions without authorization, so they sent it to the imperial study room.
This was sent to the imperial study room, and was seen by many ministers on duty and walking ministers. Well, it was all over the place.
After all, this is not a top-secret matter and is not allowed to be leaked. Many people are extremely worried about Chen Lifu's plan, and many people are directly opposed to it.
What are they worried about and what are they opposed to?
First of all, what they worry about and oppose is not the construction of the railway itself. Now that Datang is in the period of great railway development, it is politically correct to encourage and support railway transportation, so they will naturally not oppose it.
What they worry about and oppose is simply the way in which railway development is supported.
Chen Lifu is not just supporting the development of railways. He is directly throwing money at it, and it is government money.
Even if the money is from Guangdong's local finance, it is still government money. It is unheard of for government money to be used to subsidize commercial companies.
They are even more worried that once this gap is opened up, countless bribery, corruption, power-for-money trading, public-for-privacy and other administrative problems will arise in the future.
When government money is used to subsidize commercial companies, what are the standards for the subsidy? Are there power-for-money transactions, etc. These are all potentially major problems.