关注社会:香港银行家们该充电了

The investment banking jobs market in Hong Kong is dire. But there are no signs of a summer exodus of expat bankers to ease pressure on that most scarce of resources – school places.

香港投行业的就业形势很差，但目前看不到外籍银行家在夏季成批离开香港、给本地最稀缺资源——学校学位——减轻了压力的迹象。

Investment banks across Asia have shrunk staff through occasional cuts and broad attrition as market activity has stumbled, leaving plenty of former bankers kicking their heels, according to recruiters and industry executives.

按照招聘人员和行业高管们的说法，在整个亚洲地区，随着市场活动骤减，投行纷纷通过裁员和自然减员来减少人手，使得大量"前银行家"无所事事。

Many expats could struggle to find new jobs in Hong Kong banking. Firstly, global banks have become more realistic on the profits to be made in Asia, especially since most of the really big state-backed Chinese listings have been done. This entails a fresh look at the resources they really need when their US and European businesses are making less money and the banks are less prepared to subsidise Asian arms.

许多外籍银行家可能很难在香港银行业找到新的工作。首先，国际性银行对亚洲盈利前景的认识变得更加现实，尤其是在大多数真正大型的、政府支持的中资IPO都已经完成的情况下。因此，鉴于欧美业务盈利下降，而且银行自身也更加不乐意为亚洲附属机构提供资助，他们有必要重新审视自己真正需要的资源。

Secondly, in Hong Kong in particular, recruiters say they are being asked to find native Mandarin speakers – especially those with some international education and experience – to fill what few jobs there are.

其次，招聘人员表示，新职位往往要求会讲普通话的本地人才，尤其是具有海外留学和工作经验的人才——这一点在香港尤其明显——而且空缺职位也为数不多。

A third cloud over the industry not just in Hong Kong but globally is the fear that we have left behind the years of peak market velocity, which is a measure of how often each equity share changes hands, or each unit of bank capital is reused to create a new loan. In equities, this would mean a future of lower stock market activity – and lower income for the banks that facilitate it.

银行业的第三个问题不仅仅限于香港，而且是全球性的：人们担心，现在已经不是市场周转率处于高峰的那几年。市场周转率是衡量股票换手率或每单位银行资本放贷率的指标。就股市而言，这将意味着未来股票市场活动减少，为市场交易提供服务的银行的收入也将相应下降。

But here is a big reason to be much more positive on Asia and all aspects of its financial system even as China's economy slows. The West is struggling to get real growth juice out of the monetary stimulus that has been pursued over the past three years. A big part of that is due to regulatory changes that are explicitly putting a brake on velocity in bank capital and limiting the diversity of the financial system. In China and the rest of emerging Asia precisely the opposite is true. These economies are slowly creating the conditions where the financial system will get much more punching power out of each unit of capital employed – whether that is in the equity market or in banking.

但是，我们仍然大有理由看好亚洲及其金融体系的各个领域，尽管中国经济在减速。西方国家在过去三年出台了各项货币刺激政策，但它们仍难以从中获得真正的增长活力。这在很大程度上归咎于监管改革，监管改革明显抑制了银行资本的周转率，限制了金融体系的多元化。而在中国和新兴亚洲的其它地区，情况则恰恰相反。这些经济体正在慢慢地创造条件，让金融体系能够从资本的使用中获得更大的动力，无论在股市还是在银行业。

Western finance is experiencing a very painful gear-change from one that turned out to be way too high for the economic engine. Emerging Asia is barely out of first gear in finance terms.

西方金融业正在经历一个非常痛苦的换挡过程，目前所在的档位对经济发动机来说实在太高了。新兴亚洲的金融处于一档则基本上没什么问题。

This is changing in number of ways – through policy in China and through evolution elsewhere. It will create more financial jobs – but will be in different places and doing different things than the equity-market focused jobs with global banks of the recent past.

改变有多种方式：中国的政策和其他地区的发展。它将创造更多的金融职位，但工作地点和工作内容都有所不同，并非过去几年国际性银行中专注于股市的职位。

In China, there is a long way to go and progress will probably remain slow, but things are changing. Hong Kong's 15th anniversary of its return to China from British sovereignty has seen a welter of initiatives. Some are iterative, such as the first Hong Kong listed exchange traded funds to invest directly in Chinese stocks, or expansion of offshore renminbi bonds issuance. Others are quite new, such as allowing Hong Kong banks to lend directly to Chinese companies in an area near Shenzhen. There have also been signals that mainland insurers will get much more investment freedom.

中国仍有很长的路要走，进展可能依然缓慢，但情况正在改变。中国在庆祝香港回归15周年之际出台了一系列举措。其中一些是之前提到过的，比如香港首只可直接投资于内地股市的交易所交易基金(ETF)，扩大离岸人民币债券发行。其它则是全新的举措，比如允许香港的银行向深圳一个地区的中资企业直接放贷。还有迹象表明，中国内地保险公司将获得更大的投资自由。

In the rest of Asia, excluding Japan, more radical change is happening in both markets and investment banking generally. Local investment banks are playing an increasingly important role in linking local companies with their markets. The split in total investment banking fees between international banks and domestic Asian banks has reversed in recent years. In 2003, international banks took 66 per cent of all fees to domestic banks' 34 per cent, according to Dealogic. So far this year, international banks have taken their lowest share of fees ever: 40 per cent versus domestic banks' 60 per cent.

在其它亚洲地区（不包括日本），市场和投行业普遍出现了更根本的变化。本土投行在充当本土公司和市场桥梁方面发挥着越来越重要的作用。在投行手续费收入总额中，国际性银行与亚洲本土银行的占比短短几年就发生了逆转。Dealogic的数据表明，2003年，在实现的所有投行手续费中，国际银行占66%，而本土银行占34%。今年迄今为止，国际银行的份额为40%，创出有史以来的最低水平，而本土银行为60%。

Four of the top-10 fee earning banks so far this year are Chinese – CITIC Securities, Guosen Securities, Bank of China and GF Securities – while Malaysia's CIMB and China International Capital are in the top 15.

今年迄今为止，亚洲投行手续费收入前十名的银行中，有四家是中资机构——中信证券(Citic Securities)、国信证券(Guosen Securities)、中国银行(Bank of China)和广发证券(GF Securities)，同时马来西亚的联昌国际银行(CIMB)和中国国际金融公司(China International Capital Corporation)排在十五位以内。

Asian bond issuance is also running at levels never seen before with nearly $500bn worth done already in the first half, according to Dealogic. Hong Kong saw the biggest jump.

Dealogic的数据显示，亚洲债券发行量也处于历来最高水平，今年上半年发行额接近5000亿美元。香港债券发行量的增幅最大。

This not only gives companies more funding sources but also it is the first stage in recycling bank capital with more velocity by strengthening routes to refinance traditional loans.

这不仅让企业获得了更多的融资来源，而且它也是加快银行资本再周转的第一阶段，增强了为传统贷款再融资的途径。

Those out of work Hong Kong bankers may need to find different skills to use in different institutions but Asia still looks like the best place to be.

在香港，那些失业的银行家可能需要掌握各种不同的技能，以便在不同的机构中使用，不过，亚洲看起来仍然是首选之地。