Top executives at Postal Savings Bank of China have had an exhausting summer. They were already busy meeting potential investors for a capital raising, ahead of an initial public offering next year, when they had to find Rmb74bn ($11.9bn) for China Securities Finance the de facto government fund used to buy Chinese shares, in an attempt to stabilise the mainland’s plunging stock market.

中国邮政储蓄银行(Postal Savings Bank of China)的高管们过了一个精疲力尽的夏天。他们本来就忙着赶在明年首次公开发行(IPO)前会晤潜在的投资者以筹集资本，但还不得不为事实上的政府基金中国证券金融公司(China Securities Finance Corporation)筹措740亿元人民币（合119亿美元）用于购买国内股票，以求稳定大幅下跌的中国股市。

It is easy to be cynical about the Postal Savings Bank’s imminent listing and that of its Japanese counterpart, Japan Post Bank, later this week. Both are government creatures, and their funds are meant to support national priorities. Beijing and Tokyo might view the partial privatisations as proof of their reformist credentials, but investors would do better to see the banks as lenders of last resort for projects that the private sector would balk at underwriting.

对于中国邮储银行即将上市，以及日本邮政银行(Japan Post Bank)本周晚些时候的上市，人们很容易感到狐疑。两家银行都是由政府发起设立，它们的资金注定要支持国家重点事项。中日两国政府可能将这种部分私有化视为他们锐意改革的证据，但投资者最好还是将这些银行视为私人部门不愿背书的项目的最后贷款人。

For China Postal Savings, this idea of national service means financing anything that the government deems important, including buying the bonds of other listed and unlisted banks. For Japan Post, serving the national interest is one reason for its IPO: the proceeds will go mostly to fund reconstruction in the Tohoku area, which was devastated by the tsunami as well as the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster of 2011.

对中国邮储银行而言，这种为国家服务的观念意味着要为政府认为重要的所有事项提供资金，包括购买其他上市和未上市银行的债券。对日本邮政银行而言，服务于国家利益是其IPO的一个理由：上市所得将主要为日本东北地区(Tohoku)的重建提供资金，该地区因2011年的海啸和福岛核电站泄漏灾难而遭受重创。

However, while the banks have a similar background and rationale, their prospects as listed entities demonstrate how different their home markets are in their financial evolution.

然而，尽管这些银行有类似的背景和理念，但它们作为上市实体的前景表明了各自本土市场在金融发展方面是多么的不同。

Japan Post Bank shares are being mainly sold to retail investors, who have few more attractive alternatives after the government’s policy of quantitative easing depressed interest rates. Japanese government bonds yield virtually nothing and may soon trade on negative yields. In comparison, the 3 per cent dividend yield expected on Japan Post Bank shares looks generous. With the government pricing the shares at a wide discount to the bank’s assets, they look a safe buy at least on day one. Many fund managers also expect the wider Japanese stock market the best performing in the world this year to remain strong, as the Bank of Japan considers ratcheting up its support of financial markets, possibly by purchasing equity exchange traded funds.

日本邮政银行的股票主要面向散户投资者发售在日本政府出台量化宽松政策打压利率之后，散户没什么更吸引人的投资选择。日本政府债券收益率几乎为零，而且很快会出现负收益率。相比之下，日本邮政银行股票预计提供的3%的股息率看起来相当慷慨。由于日本政府对该行股票的定价与其资产相比有大幅折扣，购买这些股票看起来是安全的，至少在上市首日是安全的。许多基金经理也预计日本股市大盘将保持强劲日本股市是今年全球表现最好的因为日本央行(BoJ)正考虑加大对金融市场的支持，可能会购买股票交易所交易基金(ETF)。

But that very policy means almost every financial asset is artificially priced including the yen while most of the profits of Japanese companies are simply currency translation gains.

但这种政策意味着几乎所有金融资产（包括日元）都是人为定价的，而日本企业的大部分利润只是货币兑换收益。

If Japan Post Bank’s shares are to continue to perform well, it will need to show that it can find new homes for its money. As the largest bank in the country, with 20 per cent of all deposits, it used to put at least half of the cash into Japanese government bonds. Now that the Bank of Japan is taking up more net new issuance of these bonds, Japan Post Bank’s role has become less important.

日本邮政银行要想让其股票继续表现良好，就得表明它能够为其资金找到新的投资去处。作为日本最大的银行，日本邮政银行持有国内20%的存款，过去将其至少一半的资金投资于日本政府债券。既然现在日本央行认购更多新发行的政府债券，日本邮政银行的角色已变得不那么重要了。

Investors may rightly wonder whether the bank has the skillset to put money abroad, or into riskier assets at home.

投资者可能合情合理地揣测，日本邮政银行是否有能力投资海外或者投资于国内风险更高的资产。

Low interest rates also mean the bank’s net interest margins will remain under pressure, at a time when the flow of funds into its coffers is set to slow largely as a result of poor demographics and the hollowing out of many of the villages it serves in Japan.

低利率也意味着，随着资金流入放缓（这在很大程度上是糟糕的人口结构和该行服务的许多村庄空心化的结果），日本邮政银行的净息差将依然承受压力。

At first glance, Postal Savings Bank of China faces similar demographic and management challenges. But China is at a very different stage of development: a young economy trying to become more efficient.

乍看之下，中国邮储银行面临类似的人口结构和管理挑战。但中国处于截然不同的发展阶段：一个仍在努力提高效率的年轻经济体。

Whether China Postal Savings will be similarly affected by these challenges, or rise to meet them, remains an open question. While most of China’s state owned enterprises are rarely run by managers who prioritise shareholder return, many are far less sleepy than their Japanese counterparts. In addition, Beijing is serious about instilling a sense of competition in its financial markets, which means its banks are no longer as hostile or indifferent to customers as in the past.

至于中国邮储银行也将受到这些挑战的影响，还是将敏锐地应对这些挑战，目前仍是一个没有现成答案的问题。尽管大多数中国国有企业很少由注重股东回报的经理人运营，但许多中国企业远没有日本同行那么懒散。此外，中国政府对于向国内金融市场注入竞争理念是认真的，这意味着中国的银行不再像过去那样对客户敌视或者冷淡。

Innovations such as Alipay’s Yu’E Bao money market fund which offers savers a higher rate than bank deposits are already making a difference.

各种创新，如支付宝(Alipay)旗下的余额宝货币市场基金（为储户提供高于银行存款利率的收益率），也已经在产生影响。