SHANGHAI, May 12 (Xinhua) -- More than 70 billion
yuan (9.1 billion U.S. dollars) was transferred from savings accounts in
Shanghai to stock trading accounts in the first four months of this year, the
Shanghai branch of the People's Bank of China estimated on Saturday.
In April alone,
RMB-denominated savings deposits with Chinese banking institutions decreased by 8.5 billion
yuan (1.1 billion dollars).
"Given the continuous bullish stock market, the
diversion of savings deposits will persist for a good while yet," said an
official with the Shanghai branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of
China.
Shanghai is far from being an exception. The craze
has challenged banking service facilities in some areas.
In Changsha, capital city of central China's Hunan
Province, a lady surnamed Wei found tens of thousands of yuan of her money
deposited at a local outlet of the China Construction Bank failed to be
transferred when she was in a hurry to buy in stocks at around 9 a.m. on
April 30, the last trading day before the week-long May holiday. Her money was
safe but the bank's computer crashed due to an overload of transfer requests.
A similar cases occurred again with the China
Construction Bank Changsha branch on May 8, the first trading day after the
holiday. Company sources said the bank is testing new computer servers with a
larger operating capacity.
The heavy inflow of funds, strong corporate profits,
and double-digit economic growth have helped drive up the key Shanghai index by
more than 51 percent this year after it soared 130 percent last year.
In the first trading week after the May Day
holiday, the combined market value of the two bourses on the Chinese mainland swelled
by 4.97 percent from April 30 to 16.89 trillion yuan (2.2 trillion dollars).
Investors dived into the robust capital market. It is
reported that on May 8, the first trading day after the weeklong holiday, the
two bourses recorded the opening of 421,831 new stock trading accounts,
including 368,400 accounts for the A-share market. This brought the total number
of stock trading accounts on the two exchanges to 94.37 million.
According to a monthly report jointly
produced by Shanghai Securities Journal and Shenyin Wanguo Securities, in April
alone a record 250 billion yuan (32.5 billion dollars) was added to the
capital ready for stock trading, bringing the total on the A-share market to 980
billion yuan (127.3 billion dollars).
The investment spree has aroused concern from the
industry watchdog.
In a notice released on Friday, China Securities
Regulatory Commission (CSRC) urged stock exchanges, securities dealers and
related authorities to educate investors about the risks of stock market
investment.
These institutions must make investors understand
that stock markets are risky and they should be cautious in entering the market,
especially those who use all their savings or pawn their apartments for loans to
invest in stocks, the notice said.
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