Summary:
In recent years, digital finance has rapidly developed in China, and financial technology has significantly improved the quality and efficiency of financial services by promoting the digital transformation of traditional financial institutions. However, some financial innovation businesses based on internet technology are free from conventional supervision, serving as hidden dangers to financial stability. In such circumstances, the fund source stability is poor, thereby challenging liquidity and risk management, violating the supervision and the self-discipline requirements of market interest rate pricing, and hampering the regional restrictions of local banks. The launch of JD Finance and Fumin Bank's “Fuminbao” in 2018 marked the beginning of third-party cooperative deposits. The third-party platform displays information on deposit products, using phrases such as “bank deposits, principal and interest guarantee,” “100% compensation within 500,000 yuan”. Third-party cooperative deposits cover several high-yield deposit products, becoming a necessary means for some small-and medium-sized banks to absorb deposits and alleviate their liquidity pressure. Third-party cooperative deposits are categorized as non-proprietary platforms and are strictly regulated; however, there is a lack of academic research on the associated risks. Owing to the convenience, large customer traffic, and high returns of third-party internet platforms, third-party cooperative deposits have resulted in a surge in liquidity to some banks. It remains unknown whether the rapid expansion of the liability side impacts the allocation and risk of the asset side; theoretically, no consensus has been reached. On the one hand, deposit inflows may incentivize banks to take on more risks by alleviating the liquidity pressure. On the other hand, the nature of flexible deposit withdrawal may impose market constraints and limit risk-taking by banks. Therefore, it is critical to clarify the relationship between third-party cooperative deposits and the asset-side risk-taking of commercial banks. This study provides valuable, in-depth insights into the impact of financial technology on risk management by banks and improves the supervision of internet deposits. This study collects the data of the 2012-2020 semi-annual and annual reports of China's listed banks. Using the difference-in-differences model and setting the start of the third-party cooperative deposit as 2018, we categorize the banks that cooperate with the third-party platform as the treatment group and the non-cooperative banks as the control group. This study finds that the banks in the treatment group took significantly more risks, as indicated by the expansion of risk-weighted assets and increased credit allocation in high-risk industries. Prior to this, a parallel trend existed between the treatment and control groups. The increased risk-taking commenced after the third-party cooperative deposit business began. Therefore, this paper provides causal evidence that third-party cooperative deposit businesses increase the risk-taking of banks. Analysis of the underlying mechanism shows that the size of the savings deposits of treatment group banks has increased significantly, shifting the risk-taking behavior of banks toward high-interest loans and high-risk industries. By controlling the average deposit costs of banks and the associated interactions, this study excludes the risk transfer hypothesis, i.e., that increases in the cost of deposits augments risk-taking. In robustness tests, we use propensity score matching to select the control and treatment groups for matching, conduct a placebo experiment using the 2015 data, eliminate the regulated industry sample, and add the interactive variables of the bank's wealth management products. It is noteworthy that these robustness checks do not alter the main results of this study. This study makes the following contributions. First, it focuses on the new perspective of cooperation between banks and internet deposit platforms, assesses the exogenous shock caused by third-party cooperative deposits, analyzes the effects of liability-side business innovations on the asset side, and enriches the literature related to internet finance, financial technology, and micro banking. Second, the mechanism analysis indicates that the surge in liquidity caused by third-party cooperative deposits is the key to improving banks' risk-taking, which implies that regulatory authorities should strengthen liquidity and internet deposit supervision.
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