Ben Shenglin:The World Need a New Approach to Infrastructure Financing

2016-05-20 IMI

Ben Shengling: Executive Director and Council Member of IMI; Founding Dean, Academy of Internet Finance, Zhejiang University. The Gap It is a well-known number to many of us here: Asia alone requires an estimated infrastructure investment of USD 800 billion per annum, according to Asia Development Bank. There is a significant gap between the requirements and the capacity of current multilateral development institutions: ADB and World Bank has a total loan book of USD 56 billion and USD 290 billion respectively. To a certain extent, the gap has led to the creation of Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with a particular focus on infrastructure financing. However AIIB, even with its larger registered capital (targeted at USD 100 billion as compared to USD 16.9 billion and USD 10 billion respectively for ADB and WB), will not be able to close the huge gap of demand. In the meantime, the private sector (financial institutions’) participation in infrastructure financing appears to be very limited and worryingly decreasing as global banks have become more focused on trading activities and less willing to book long term loans, as evidenced in their increasingly lower loan-to-asset ratios. Our financial system today is much more “markets-oriented” and speculative in nature, and the trading culture of financial institutions is more pronounced: in 2015, global foreign exchange trading volume was 26 times of global GDP and in China the stock trading volume/stock market capitalization was over 500%! Notwithstanding the fanfare, public-private-partnership, or PPP, has not been working in infrastructure financing. The Paradox On the other hand, the general public has had very little participation or avenues to participate in infrastructure financing, thanks to the existent system and cost structure of its prevailing business models. This is probably one of the very rare occasions that the Main Street and Wall Street have something in common: little participation in financing real infrastructure needs. What is both frustrating and contradictory is that while savers are getting (closer to) nil or negative interest rates across the world (and in many cases they are forced to save more for retirement), the financial system has failed to deploy the excess savings to where the money is required for the real economy and real needs of the world such as infrastructure financing, which is what financial intermediation is supposed to do. Therefore, the financial system and markets have either performed poorly or failed miserably in intermediating savings to loan and investment opportunities, in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness. The Solution Are there solutions to the paradoxes and contradictions? If there are, where are they? We believe that there are solutions and the solutions reside with digital technology. Digital technology can help establish or enhance connectivity between nations and regions (such as the New Silk Initiative which encompasses Asia-Europe inter-continental collaboration); between public and private sectors; between savers and investors/borrowers; and over the spans of time (maturity intermediation between shorter-tenor of deposits and longer-term nature of infrastructure financing). With new digital technology, there will be more visibility and transparency of the connectivity, and therefore more trust, which is the foundation of a functional financial system. The digitization of finance also provides the much needed efficiency, near-zero cost, lower barrier for investment, and broader participation of the general public, all of which are hallmarks of “inclusive finance” that we are aiming to achieve in today’s “sharing economy”. These are not just imaginative technologies. The application of digital finance has already been widely seen in the name of FinTech, particularly in some emerging markets like China and India. FinTech will not only compete but also complement existent solutions including multilateral institutions, private sector banks and bond markets to plug the gap of infrastructure financing. More importantly the competitive pressure that FinTech has been unleashing will also help the existent system become more inclusive, participative, efficient and effective. This will help guide the financial sector to focus back on its roots and original purposes: serving real needs of the economy, infrastructure financing included. The Conclusion Over 700 years ago, the legendary European, Marco Polo, went to China and it took him a lot of courage and time (24 years) to return and thus share his Silk Road stories with the world. Today, there is the New Silk Road initiative, the so-called One Belt & One Road strategy proposed by China. Compared to 13^th century, any story sharing today can be instant! Ladies and gentlemen, today we are NOT short of vision, nor are we short of technologies, will, opportunities, money and savings. What are needed is a new mindset and a new approach to infrastructure financing, enabled by the new technology and concerted effort from all! Thank you!

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Ben Shenglin:The World Need a New Approach to Infrastructure Financing

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