Wanlian Securities: Financing demand needs improvement; the banking sector still has allocation value.

Wanlian Securities: Financing demand needs improvement; the banking sector still has allocation value. Wanlian Securities released a research report stating that financing demand remained weak in August, the year-on-year growth rate of outstanding total social financing continued to slow, and the progress of government bond financing remained relatively slow. The subsequent pace of fiscal stimulus is a key factor affecting the economic fundamentals and monetary policy. The banking sector's 2026 interim results were broadly in line with expectations, though internal divergence further intensified. On the revenue side, driven by net interest margin improvement and integrated operations, resilience was maintained; further tightening of risk classification policies combined with increased provisioning intensity made the elasticity of profit improvement smaller than that of revenue. Taking into account the current dividend yield and valuation levels of bank stocks, the bank believes the sector still has allocation value. First, prefer defensive varieties; second, pay attention to expectation-gap opportunities in high-quality regional banks and investment opportunities in low-valuation joint-stock banks. The main views of Wanlian Securities are as follows: August outstanding total social financing grew 7.2% year-on-year, down 0.2% from the previous month In August, new total social financing was 1.66 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.91 trillion yuan. Among this, RMB loans under the total social financing caliber increased by 0.06 trillion yuan in the month, a year-on-year decrease of 0.57 trillion yuan; net government bond financing was 1.0 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.36 trillion yuan. As of the end of August, the outstanding scale of total social financing was 464.8 trillion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 7.2%, down 0.2% from the previous month. Credit financing demand remains weak In August, loans increased by 0.06 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.53 trillion yuan. As of the end of August, the balance of RMB loans of financial institutions was 282.35 trillion yuan, up 4.9% year-on-year, down 0.2% from the previous month. On the corporate side, August saw an increase of 0.26 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease, among which short-term loans decreased by 0.16 trillion yuan and medium- and long-term loans increased by 0.32 trillion yuan; bill financing increased by 0.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase. On the household side, August saw a decrease of 0.2 trillion yuan, a larger year-on-year decrease, among which short-term loans and medium- and long-term loans decreased by 0.12 trillion yuan and 0.08 trillion yuan, respectively. August M2 growth slowed from the previous month, and deposit year-on-year growth also slowed In August, M2 grew 7.5% year-on-year, with growth slowing from the previous month; M1 grew 4.1% year-on-year, with growth picking up from the previous month. In August, new RMB deposits were 1.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.86 trillion yuan, and the year-on-year growth rate of RMB deposit balances was 7.7%, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous month. Risk factors: a macroeconomic downturn, a greater-than-expected decline in corporate debt-servicing capacity, which would have a significant impact on banks' asset quality; accommodative monetary policy would have a negative impact on banks' net interest margins; continued tightening of regulatory policies would also have a certain impact on the industry.