China Checks Household Debt Health
China will survey 30,000 participants to identify risk and opportunities in the rarely discussed universe of mainland household debt.
The study will begin in mid-October and be conducted at bank branches across the country, according to a promotional video by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), and focus on debt risk especially relating to property exposure and its effect on national financial stability.
Questions cover subjects such as income, spending, assets, mortgage loans and other debt, PBoC said. This could provide Chinese authorities with a «clearer picture of household debt levels and people’s repayment capabilities, which could in turn influence future macroeconomic policy», one «SCMP» report wrote.
The focus on household debt – and the scale of this manual project – is rare for China which has more often focused on small banks. One such example is the Baoshang Bank government takeover which broke the state’s 20-year run and fell due in part to what was described as «misappropriation of funds».
