HONG KONG -- It may be too soon to say that glimmers of hope can be seen in the quality of Chinese bank assets, considering they have off-balance-sheet assets that are collectively larger than the world's fifteenth-largest economy.
The country's six biggest commercial banks revealed this week that their off-balance-sheet assets -- likely held through trusts and wealth management products -- were worth 7.78 trillion yuan ($1.13 trillion) as of March -- more than Mexico's 2016 nominal gross domestic product of $1.06 trillion, or about a tenth of China's economy.
