At the beginning of March, the central bank carried out a reverse repurchase operation of 10 billion yuan in a row. On March 5, the central bank announced that in order to maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity in the banking system, a 7-day reverse repurchase operation of 10 billion yuan was carried out in the form of interest rate bidding, and the winning interest rate was 18%。
Since February 23, the central bank has stepped up reverse repurchase operations, and stated in the announcement that "in order to maintain stable liquidity at the end of the month". Specifically, after the Spring Festival holiday, in addition to the 105 billion yuan reverse repurchase operation launched by the central bank on February 18, the scale of daily reverse repurchase operations from February 19 to February 22 was 10 billion yuan. On February 23, the scale of the central bank's reverse repurchase operation increased to 247 billion yuan, and the daily operation scale from February 26 to February 28 was 329 billion yuan, 384 billion yuan, and 324 billion yuan respectively.
After entering March, the central bank continued to maintain a reverse repurchase operation of 10 billion yuan, forming a continuous net withdrawal in the open market. According to wind data statistics, on March 1, March 4, and March 5, the net withdrawal was 247 billion yuan, 329 billion yuan, and 374 billion yuan respectively.
From the perspective of the conventional factors affecting the liquidity gap, the overall liquidity may be replenished in March, mainly due to the sharp decline in the month-on-month increase in the added value of fiscal deposits. At the same time, March is usually the high point of the payment standard, and the month-on-month change in RMB deposits of depository financial institutions since 2019 is multiplied by the statutory reserve ratio to obtain the payment scale. On average, the scale of payment in March will increase by 321.1 billion yuan month-on-month. Xiao Yu, chief fixed income analyst of Zhongtai, believes in an analysis.
In addition, from the perspective of capital demand, real sectors such as residents and enterprises usually have a strong demand for cash withdrawals before the Spring Festival, and M0 will return to banks after the Spring Festival.
Xiao Yu said that combined with the analysis of the central bank's behavior, MLF is about to expire 481 billion yuan in March, and the reverse repurchase stock is 116 trillion yuan, the overall pressure is not large. Assuming that both are due for the same amount of renewal, the excess storage ratio is expected to rise to 1 in March62%。Therefore, there is little pressure on the capital side in March, but it is necessary to pay attention to the risk of increased volatility of funds at the end of the quarter.
In fact, judging from the performance of the same period in history, whether it is the liquidity stratification within the interbank market or the liquidity stratification of the exchange and the interbank market, in recent years, March has been a month of significant increase in liquidity stratification.
The main reason is that at the end of the quarter, banks are under the pressure of MPA and other regulatory assessment indicators, and there is a clear differentiation in the willingness of banks and non-banks to lend funds. Therefore, it is expected that the central bank's monetary policy operation in March will be neutral in the replenishment of liquidity, and the changes in the capital side are mainly affected by the willingness and ability of market institutions to lend money, and the funds may rise, focusing on the pressure on the cost of funds of non-bank institutions from the tax period to the end of the quarter. Li Qinghe, chief analyst of Huafu ** fixed income, pointed out in an analysis.
Reporter Liu Yang.