Abstract: In recent years, the economic and financial business blended with digital technology has spawned emerging digital financial activities, which has profoundly affected Chinese financial institutions and financial market system. The in-depth integration of technology and finance helps better realize banking functions, which is also an important part of the financial supply-side structural reform. Liquidity creation is the core function of commercial banks. Studying whether digital finance can improve bank liquidity creation has important application value and theoretical significance in promoting financial services to support the real economy.
The influence mechanism of digital finance on bank liquidity creation is as follows. On the one hand, digital finance intensifies the competition in the financial market, promotes the process of the interest rate liberalization, and indirectly causes the falling of loan interest rates and the rising of deposit interest rates. For the liability side of banks, market competition has pushed up the cost of funds and reduced the stability of funding sources. For the asset side, market competition squeezes out bank assets and reduces the scale of bank credit supply, which is harmful to their liquidity creation. On the other hand, the development of digital finance has technological spillover effects on banks. Through the flow of technical staffs, banks can imitate the technology and upgrade their technical systems, therefore promote customer acquisition. At the same time, digital technology has improved banks' risk control capabilities, enabling them to increase small and micro credit assets and expand their business scale. Overall, technology spillovers improve bank liquidity creation.
In the empirical section, this paper measures the banks' liquidity creation level, and then for the first time uses the financial license information from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission to construct a micro-digital financial index of 173 commercial banks from 2011 to 2020 on the basis of the Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index. The empirical research results show that the digital financial shock presents a “U”-shaped impact of “market squeeze first, then technology spillover” on bank liquidity creation. That is, the impact of digital finance will deteriorate the banks liquidity creation in the short term, and improve the ability to serve the real economy in the long run. The inflection point occurred in 2015 when the digital financial index was 197. From the perspective of regional heterogeneity, due to the more intense financial market competition in the central and eastern regions, commercial banks have a significant effect on creating liquidity. In the western region, digital finance does not have a significant effect on banks' liquidity creation. In terms of bank types, Joint-stock and regional commercial banks are more capable of cultivating regional customers and react more strongly to business shocks, which in turn alter their liquidity creation capabilities.
In response to the above research conclusions, this paper puts forward the following policy suggestions: (1) The regulatory authorities should master the development law of digital finance, improve the predictability of supervision, set up market access thresholds timely, so as to create a fair competition environment and ensure orderly competition. (2) Promote traditional financial institutions to utilize the digital technology to improve business models, optimize business processes and innovate financial products. As a result, the supply-side structural reform of the financial sector can be advanced, and the banks' liquidity creation also be improved. (3) Small and medium-sized banks should focus on their own advantages, responsibilities and main businesses, use the digital technology to achieve a comprehensive upgrade of their digital business models. Banks in the western region should seize the new opportunities of the strategic project that channels computing resources from the east to the west, organically combine technological innovation, industrial transformation with digital upgrading, and respond to the challenges of transformation actively.

Key words: Digital Finance, Commercial Banks, Liquidity Creation

摘要： 使用银保监会金融许可证信息,首次在北京大学数字普惠金融指数基础上构建了2011—2020年173家商业银行微观数字金融指数,实证研究数字金融对银行流动性创造的影响。结果表明:(1)数字金融冲击对银行流动性创造具有市场竞争效应与技术溢出效应,呈现出“先市场挤出,后技术溢出”的“U”型影响,拐点出现在指数197时,对应时间是2015年,即数字金融冲击短期会恶化银行流动性创造,长期会提升银行服务实体经济能力,且表内与表外流动性创造影响效应一致。(2)数字金融发展对银行流动性创造的作用程度具有异质性,相较于国有大型商业银行与西部地区银行,股份制商业银行、区域性商业银行与东、中部地区银行的影响效应更为显著。

关键词: 数字金融, 商业银行, 流动性创造