美国贷款：速度与冒险

利率仍然很低，净息差仍很微小，而美国银行通过签发更多的借贷回应这一情况——这让监管者们处在了边缘的位置。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

fecund['fiːkənd] 肥沃的；多产的；丰饶的；生殖力旺盛的

leveraged ['levəridʒd] 杠杆的；杠杆作用的v. （美）举债经营

ankle-biters（俚语）指及膝盖高的小孩子

US loans: growing brood（406 words）

By Lex December 1, 2014 5:28 pm

If the economy is a family, equity represents the grown ups, debt the children. Kids are great – new life and all that. They grow naughty, though, when too many are underfoot. The US has grown fecund. Are congratulations in order? Or is it off to the orphanage again, to dump the worst of the ankle-biters for restructuring?

Rates remain very low, and net interest margins remain slim. Banks are responding by lending more. In October, loans to customers stood at $7tn, according to the St Louis Federal Reserve, about a 10th higher than in 2008, before Lehman Brothers went bust. With the US economy growing robustly (by global standards), more businesses feel confident about investing. Commercial and industrial loans issued by banks have grown nearly 50 per cent since the post-crisis lows of late 2010. Commercial real estate (CRE) loans are growing at a particularly fast pace as banks back new development projects. In the last quarter JPMorgan's CRE loan portfolio grew 13 per cent from a year earlier. The figures at Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America are also rising, albeit more modestly.

Banks have eased credit conditions for large companies in 19 out of the past 20 quarters, according to Credit Suisse. A US Federal Reserve survey shows that 10.5 per cent of US banks have lowered their standards (giving loans to companies with lower credit scores) for big and midsized groups. Meanwhile, risky leveraged lending has continued to grow despite a regulatory crackdown. All this activity has put regulators on edge. They fear a repeat of the crisis, when all the bawling and dirty diapers took the family to the edge of insolvency. Specifically, the Fed is worried that growing competition between banks to win over new customers will lead many to weaken their underwriting standards and risk management assessments.

Yet, non performing loans have halved since the 2010 peaks. And bad debt charges have fallen to 0.23 per cent in the second half of this year, down from the 2.5 per cent high in the last quarter of 2009, Credit Suisse analysis shows.

Today's banks are better capitalised than they were before the crisis. But high levels of risky debt could undermine those buffers. For the moment, the growing brood looks comfortable enough. But the more it grows, the riskier it becomes.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.In the second paragraph, the author mentions data from St Louis Federal Reserve to illustrate that ______.

A.rates remain low

B.banks lend more

C.net interest margins remain slim

答案(1)

2.According to the author, the Fed is worrying about some problems, EXCEPT______.

A.a repeat of the crisis

B.the undermine of underwriting standards

C.the weaken of risk management assessments

D.the robustly grow of the US economy

答案(2)

3.The word “halved” in the last but one paragraph can be replaced by “_______”.

A.raised

B.modified

C.reduced

D.vanished

答案(3)

* * *

(1)答案：B.banks lend more

解释：尽管其他两个选项也被提及，但文章提到圣路易斯联邦储备理事会的统计数据是为说明美国银行给予更多借贷这一事实。

(2)答案：D.the robustly grow of the US economy

解释：细节题，美联储所担心的问题全部都可以在倒数第二段找到，美国经济的强劲增长不属于此范围。

(3)答案：C.reduced

解释：“halve”意味“平分、减半”，选项中最接近这个含义的词是“reduce”。

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