Latest size of shadow banking estimated at around RMB15-20tn

On April 20th, the CEO of ICBC, quoting data from internal sources, claimed that the estimated scale of shadow banking in China is around RMB15-20tn, which is relatively small in scale to GDP when compared to shadow banking in more developed countries.

In addition, the leverage used in the Chinese shadow banking industry is not as large as other countries, so he argued that it is not necessary to worry about systematic risks in the Chinese financial system, but he still admitted there are non-systematic risks caused by shadow banking industry.

However, many independent financial analysts say that the scale and risk involved of shadow banking are underestimated and there might be increasing number of events happened in 2014 around shadow banking in China.