Moreover, ongoing interest-rate liberalization – which has occurred both openly and surreptitiously – means that artificially low borrowing costs have become far more difficult to maintain. Though the People’s Bank of China still officially caps interest rates on deposits, commercial banks – in cooperation with nonbank financial institutions, especially trust companies – are using wealth-management products to attract deposits with de facto free-market interest rates.
此外，利率自由化的进行——既有公开的，也有暗地的——意味着人为压低的借贷成本维持难度大大加剧。尽管中国人民银行仍对存款利率上限实施着官方上限，但商业银行——在非银行金融机构特别是信托公司的合作下——正在利用理财产品以事实上的自由市场利率吸引存款。结果，中国人民银行正在失去对企业贷款利率的控制，因此也不再能够约束杠杆率。