Prof. Haonan Zhou obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University in 2024. He previously worked at the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements. His research covers international macro-finance issues.
Prof. Haonan ZHOU, Assistant Professor of Finance at HKU Business School, shared his views in a recent Financial Times article. Combing through three decades of syndicated loan market data across more than 100 countries, he found that when a borrower’s home country experiences a financial crisis, non-bank lenders cut their lending by about 20% more than banks do.
For a large sample of countries, this article shows that non-banks curtail their syndicated lending by significantly more than banks during financial crises in borrower countries. Differences in the value of lending relationships explain most of the gap. Relationships with non-banks are less valuable in general and thereby do not improve borrowers’ access to credit during crises. Non-banks are also less likely to form lasting relationships with borrowers. These findings imply that the rise of non-banks could increase the importance of transaction-based lenders and exacerbate the repercussions of financial shocks.
On August 1, 2025, Hong Kong’s “Stablecoin Ordinance” will take effect, marking China’s gradual participation in the stablecoin market and its exploration of how to use Hong Kong, an offshore financial center, to promote the internationalization of the RMB through stablecoins. To answer this question, we need to understand, rationally and objectively, the development logic of offshore RMB stablecoins in the context of the current heightened market sentiment.
We re-examine monetary policy spillovers to Emerging Market Economies (EME) in the form of capital flow reversals, using sectoral-level securities holdings data for Euro Area investors. In response to a surprise monetary tightening, active investors such as investment funds re-balance their portfolios away from EME, while more passive, long term investors such as insurance funds and banks exhibit no significant reaction on average. For active investors, the reallocation out of EME appears stronger under synchronized monetary tightening between the Fed and the ECB. However, these investors may even inject more capital to EME securities when the monetary tightening surprises contain positive news about the Euro Area economy. Issuers’ monetary–fiscal stability may explain the heterogeneous impact of these spillovers.
