China's banks inch toward top of shipping finance
As Western banks withdraw, Chinese counterparts, with abundant capital, are providing new loans
Chinese lenders are fast becoming global leaders in ship financing, while Western banks are reducing or exiting their shipping loan portfolios. That disengagement is due to increasingly strict capital requirement regulations being enforced as the world's shipping industry faces its worst downturn in three decades.
In 2014, the last year for which statistics are available, three out of 15 of the world's largest shipping lenders were Chinese banks, together providing $45.3 billion of financing. That is just under 20 percent of the $258 billion total shipping finance debt of the top 15 lenders' combined, according the US-based intelligence firm Marine Money.
