Research On Information Disclosure Of Rural Commercial Banks' Off-balance Sheet Activities

In addition to the gradual narrowing banks net interest margin caused by the development of interest rates liberalization,enterprises' loan demands are also reducing due to the macro-economic downturn.Under such circumstances,the profits of traditional businesses are gradually decreasing.So it is quite urgent for banks to find new profit growth opportunities.The off-balance sheet activities feature many advantages such as increasing the profits and improving financial structures.Driven by profit pursuit,the off-balance sheet activities of commercial banks are developing very quickly.While bringing high profits for commercial banks,the off-balance sheet activities also have great risks due to their high leverage and low transparency.Compared to large-scale commercial banks,rural commercial banks feature a series of problems such as strong randomness,weak risk prevention consciousness and incomplete rules and regulations.It is an effective risk control and prevention method to constantly improve the information disclosure of rural commercial banks' off-balance sheet activities,which is also of great significance for stable and healthy development of rural commercial banks' off-balance sheet activities.The paper conducts a series of researches on the information disclosure of rural commercial banks' off-balance sheet activities by comprehensively combining qualitative and quantitative methods,normative research and empirical analysis as well as case study.It firstly defines several concepts including rural commercial banks,off-balance sheet activities and the information disclosure of off-balance sheet activities,providing necessary theoretical reference for the following analysis and evaluation.Based on the analysis on the information disclosure status and relevant rules and regulations on the information disclosure of off-sheet balance sheet activities,the paper concludes some problems existing in the information disclosure of rural commercial banks' off-balance sheet activities.Based on the qualitative analysis above,the paper further analyzes and evaluates the information disclosure of rural commercial banks' off-balance sheet activities through 4 level-1 indexes including timeliness,authenticity,integrity and importance,and 14 level-2 indexes.The results show that the information disclosure of off-balance sheet activities in China's rural commercial banks features different level.Some rural commercial banks disclose relatively adequate information so that users can acquire enough information about off-balance sheet activities,while other banks only disclose very brief and limited information.In terms of the information disclosure indexes,rural commercial banks differ greatly from each other in their timeliness.The authenticity index is relatively better disclosed.And the integrity and importance indexes need to be further improved.In particular,the off-balance sheet activities of rural commercial banks should make progress in business category,specific operation and risk disclosure.In the end,the paper has an in-depth and overall research on the representative ZH rural commercial bank by making use of the information disclosure evaluation system and successfully verifies that the information disclosure of rural commercial banks' off-balance sheet activities is still not enough.To be specific,the definition of off-balance sheet activities is still unclear,and the business operation,management responsibilities and rights,risk control and management are still to be better disclosed.Regarding the problems existed in the information disclosure of rural commercial banks' off-balance sheet activities,such as incomplete systems,inadequate feasibility and lack of systematicness,the paper proposes corresponding improving suggestions from three aspects,including enhancing the construction of rules and regulations,strengthening supervision and increasing internal control level.