Wednesday, August 21, 2013

证监会张育军:新基金法正式实施 行业迎来历史性机遇

证监会张育军:新基金法正式实施 行业迎来历史性机遇

坚定不移地推动基金业创新,将合规风控和投资人保护放在更加突出位置

2013年06月01日10:21    来源:人民网-股票频道    手机看新闻
中国证监会主席助理张育军在基金业协会2013年年会上发表讲话。
(图片来源:中国基金业协会)
人民网北京6月1日电 (杨波)今日起,修订后的《中华人民共和国证券投资基金法》(以下简称“基金法”)正式实施。为了贯彻落实新《基金法》,中国基金业协会昨日在北京举行了2013年年会,中国证监会主席助理张育军在会上表示,修订后的《基金法》为行业发展提供了难得的历史性机遇,要坚定不移地推动基金公司创新,在创新发展过程中,务必要将合规风控和投资人保护放在更加突出的位置,牢牢守住职业道德和法律法规底线,加强重点风险防范和化解工作。
张育军指出,《基金法》的修订完善,提高了人力资本在行业中的地位,拓展了公募基金的发展空间,创造了私募基金规范发展的条件,完善了行业产业链的制度安排,加大了对投资者权益保护的力度,初步构建了开放、包容、多元的行业发展空间,为行业发展提供了难得的历史性机遇。
张育军强调,必须坚持市场化改革的根本方向,保持政策的连续性和稳定性,坚定不移地推动基金公司创新。同时,不断总结创新发展的经验教训,切实巩固和深化改革创新成果,积极稳妥地将行业创新发展引向深入。当前基金公司重点要积极稳妥地开展子公司业务,扎实做好债券市场投资,积极推进业务和产品创新,加强专业人才队伍建设。
张育军表示,在推进基金行业创新发展过程中,务必要将合规风控和投资人保护放在更加突出的位置,要建立现代风险管理体系,牢牢守住职业道德和法律法规底线,建立健全风控合规责任追究制度,加强重点风险防范和化解工作。既要坚定不移地放松管制,又要旗帜鲜明地加强监管,使监管工作紧紧跟上行业和市场创新的步伐。监管机构、行业协会和交易所要围绕推动行业创新发展尽职履责,努力创造形成开放包容、公平竞争的良好市场环境。
中国证券投资基金业协会会长孙杰表示,新《基金法》颁布及配套规章制度陆续推出,行业发展的法制环境有了实质性改善,至5月底,基金业协会会员总数已经达到390家。政府职能转变和新《基金法》赋予了协会行业公共服务的重要使命,金融业改革开放加快了基金行业创新及国际化进程,要求协会工作更加专业化、国际化,资本市场改革不断深入和基金行业市场化进程加快,客观需要拓展协会自律管理的平台。
孙杰指出,下阶段基金业协会工作将以贯彻落实新《基金法》为主线,依靠各类会员,抓住金融业改革机遇,促进行业持续创新发展;扎实做好协调统一的行业自律体系建设,开展基础性服务工作;积极稳妥地做好私募基金登记、备案;完善从业人员自律管理制度,规范从业人员的执业行为;积极开展投资者教育活动,保护投资者合法权益,与行业共同努力,打造一个受人尊敬的资产管理行业。
证监会基金部主任王林就坚持贯彻落实新《基金法》,放松管制、加强监管,完善基金监管工作机制等问题进行了阐释。他希望各基金公司在抓住机遇创新发展的同时,要提高对合规管理和风险控制工作的认识。基金部将在进一步完善监管体系安排、加强监管信息化系统建设、抓好现场检查工作、积极支持行业创新、抓好基金投资监管、认真做好私募监管以及进一步加强监管执法等切实保护基金份额持有人合法权益等举措着手,推动行业健康、稳定发展。
证监会法律部主任黄炜对新《基金法》的核心法条进行归纳、解读,他表示法律的施行对资产管理行业的创新发展及规范运行,提供了更为优化的制度环境,更为广阔的制度空间,更为清晰的制度红线,希望行业用好制度资源开展经营活动。
上海证券交易所、深圳证券交易所有关负责人就建立多层次交易平台、提升交易所基金服务能力、拓展交易所基金市场、推动市场主体的创新发展等方面发表了讲话。中国证券登记结算公司总经理周明在会上也表示将加强财富管理行业的后台建设,为财富管理行业创新发展助力。
来自基金管理公司、托管银行、私募基金及证券、期货、保险等各类资产管理机构、QFII等境外资产管理机构、基金销售机构及各类服务机构会员以及证监会系统相关机构共500余位代表出席了会议。
背景资料:新《基金法》
2004年6月1日,《中华人民共和国证券投资基金法》(以下简称“基金法”)施行。九年来,公募基金与私募基金呈爆发式增长。为规范基金投资与交易,防止内幕交易、“老鼠仓”等违法现象侵害投资者合法权益,2012年12月28日全国人大常委会对基金法作了修改,将私募基金等纳入调整范围。修改后的基金法于2013年6月1日起施行。主要内容包括:
将非公开募集基金(私募基金)纳入调整范围。适应私募基金发展的需要,基金法单设一章构建了与公募基金有所区别的制度框架。
一是建立合格投资者制度,规定非公开募集基金只能向合格投资者募集,合格投资者应达到规定的收入水平或者资产规模,具备一定的风险识别能力和承担能力,合格投资者累计不得超过200人;二是规定基金的投资运作、收益分配、信息披露等方面内容主要由基金合同约定,以自律管理为主;三是规定基金管理人的登记和基金产品的备案制度,基金募集完毕后向基金行业协会备案;四是规定私募基金禁止进行公开性的宣传和推介;五是规定私募基金应当由基金托管人托管,基金合同另有约定的除外;六是规定私募基金管理人达到规定条件的,经监管机构核准,可以从事公募基金管理业务。
禁止管理人内幕交易。基金法放开对基金经理等从业人员的限制,只需要报备,基金从业人员即可进行股票投资。相应地,为加强基金监管,基金法参照证券法的规定,完善了基金治理结构,将基金管理公司的股东及其实际控制人纳入监管范围。明确基金管理人及其从业人员禁止从事内幕交易、利益输送,禁止虚假出资或者为他人代持股权、抽逃出资等规定。
基金法还开辟了基金管理人才实现自我价值的合法渠道,规定基金公司可以进行股权激励,且5%以下股权变更不需要审批。通过股权激励挽留基金管理人才,建立长效激励约束机制。
保护基金份额持有人权益。基金法规定,基金管理人、基金托管人管理、运用基金财产,基金服务机构从事基金服务活动,应当恪尽职守,履行诚实信用、谨慎勤勉的义务。基金管理人运用基金财产进行证券投资,应当遵守审慎经营规则,制定科学合理的投资策略和风险管理制度,有效防范和控制风险

Monday, August 19, 2013

Repo Market Decline Raises Alarm as Regulation Strains Debt

Repo Market Decline Raises Alarm as Regulation Strains Debt

Regulations aimed at reducing the risk of another financial crisis are starting to upend a key part of the bond market that expedites trading in everything from Treasuries to junk bonds.
The U.S. repurchase, or repo, market where banks and investors borrow and lend Treasuries and other fixed-income securities shrunk to $4.6 trillion daily outstanding last month, down 35 percent from a peak of $7.02 trillion in the first quarter of 2008, based on Federal Reserve data compiled from its 21 primary dealers.
Enlarge imageRepo Market Decline Raises Alarm as Regulation Strains Debt

Repo Market Decline Raises Alarm as Regulation Strains Debt

Repo Market Decline Raises Alarm as Regulation Strains Debt
Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Repurchases, or repos, are part of the non-bank, or “shadow banking,” sector. Banks use repos to help finance investments in Treasuries, corporate bonds and mortgages-backed securities.
Repurchases, or repos, are part of the non-bank, or “shadow banking,” sector. Banks use repos to help finance investments in Treasuries, corporate bonds and mortgages-backed securities. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Michael Amey, money manager at Pacific Investment Management Co., discusses Bank of England forward guidance, interest rates and the outlook for gilts. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "The Pulse." (Source: Bloomberg)
From fewer repos to lower inventories of bonds, financial institutions are responding to more stringent capital standards imposed by regulators around the world. Already, the group of dealers and investors that advise the U.S. Treasury say that they see declines in liquidity in times of market stress, including wider gaps between bid and offer prices and the speed of completing trades. The potential consequences are higher borrowing costs for governments, companies and consumers.
“During the market selloff over the past few months, those rules, a lot of which are just proposed or not yet taken effect, already impacted dealers’ willingness to take on inventory of Treasuries, investment grade corporates to emerging market debt,” Gregory Whiteley, who manages government debt investments at Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital LP, which oversees $57 billion, said in an Aug. 14 telephone interview.“That exacerbated the intensity of the selloff.”

Bond Losses

Dealers are cutting back at the same time volatility is rising amid speculation an improving economy will cause the Fed to reduce the $85 billion it’s spending every month to buy bonds in an effort to boost the economy.
Bonds lost of 2.9 percent over May and June, the worst two-month stretch since the $42 trillion Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market Index began in 1997.
That was worse than even the 1.9 percent decline in the height of the financial crisis in September and October 2008, when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into government conservatorship, insurer American International Group Inc. agreed to a U.S. takeover to avert collapse and Merrill Lynch & Co. was compelled to sell itself to Bank of America Corp.

Losses Resume

After a respite in July, bond losses have resumed this month. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes reached 2.87 percent today, the highest since July 2011, and were at 2.86 percent as of 6:56 a.m. New York time. The price of the benchmark 2.5 percent note due August 2023 was at 96 29/32.
Repos are part of the non-bank, or “shadow banking,”sector. Banks use repos to help finance investments in Treasuries, corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Money-market funds such as those used by individuals to park cash and savings, are a major provider of repo financing.
“The repo markets are really the grease in many financial market systems,” Josh Galper, the managing principal of securities-finance consultant Finadium LLC in Concord,Massachusetts, said in an Aug. 14 telephone interview. “Any increased friction in fixed-income markets, such as decreased repo or increased taxation, and the outcome usually is much less liquidity in government-bond markets, higher costs to borrow, more volatility and less security.”

Fed Plan

In one example of a repo agreement, a money market fund may lend cash to a dealer overnight, with government securities serving as collateral for the loan.
Obtaining cash by lending securities in repos is a method dealers use to boost leverage, amplifying returns, while money funds and other lenders earn interest on the cash they provide. The average overnight repo rate for Treasuries fell as low as 0.016 percent this year, from 0.29 percent on Dec. 31, according the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. GCF repo index.
The Fed plans to use the repo market to eventually drain reserves and guide rates higher. The central bank has conducted what’s called reverse repos with dealers and an expanded list of counterparties, including hedge and money market funds, since 2009 to test its ability to one day tighten policy.
“There will be a problem when the Fed begins their exit strategy, through using reserve draining in an attempt to put pressure and torque under the fed funds rate, if the repo market isn’t big and deep for them in Treasuries and mortgages,” Joe Abate, a money-market strategist in New York at Barclays Plc, said in a telephone interview on Aug. 8.

Price Changes

Even though Fed data show primary dealers trade almost $600 billion of Treasuries each day on average, making the market the deepest, most liquid in the world, prices suggest constraints on bank balance sheets are having an impact on trading.
The difference between the prices at which dealers buy and sell Treasury futures contracts is about 2/32, or 63 cents per $1,000 face amount, or double what it was in the five years before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Recent regulatory changes will cause dealers to reduce risk and to make markets less aggressively,” Bruce Tuckman, senior fellow of financial markets research at the non-profit Center for Financial Stability and a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said in an Aug. 14 telephone interview. “End users will lose some liquidity as dealers adjust to higher risk capital mandates, lower leverage limits, and increased margin requirements.”

Yield Discrepancies

The difference in yields between the newest Treasuries auctioned by the government and older bonds show investors are increasingly concerned about getting stuck with less liquid bonds, forgoing some yield in the process.
While debt markets have grown since the financial crisis, annual turnover in Treasuries as a multiple of total outstanding debt has declined to about 12 times from about 20 in 2008, according to the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee’s report to the Treasury last month.
Regulations from the Volcker rule ban on proprietary trading as part of the Dodd-Frank Act to risk-weighted asset requirements under Basel III guidelines and new supplementary leverage ratios have “reduced risk -- but also reduced liquidity,” the TBAC wrote in its report to the Treasury published on July 31.
“Leverage ratios will leave dealers less willing to provide repo financing and to hold U.S. Treasuries,” according to the TBAC, which is made up of bond dealers and investors ranging from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York to Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., which manages $2 trillion, including the world’s largest bond fund.

Still ‘Deep’

TBAC members, including Chairman Dana Emery, who is the chief executive officer of Dodge & Cox Inc., and Vice Chairman Curtis Arledge of Bank of New York Mellon Corp., didn’t respond to telephone requests or weren’t available for comment.
Concerns that the bond market is less efficient given regulations and fewer repos are overblown, according to Vanguard Group Inc., the biggest U.S. mutual-fund firm.
“From a liquidity perspective, the depth and breadth of the market is just as deep as it has ever been,” David Glocke, who manages $65 billion of Treasuries at Vanguard in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, said in an Aug. 14 telephone interview.“The people who are going to be impacted the most by the regulations’ effects on the marketplace are doing their very best to make regulators aware of their concerns.”
The Fed’s primary dealers had an average $2.6 trillion last month in outstanding daily repurchase agreements, central bank data shows. When that is combined with reverse repurchase agreements, where dealers take in collateral and lend cash, the total outstanding reached $4.6 trillion.

Fed Purchases

The repo market is also shrinking as the Fed scoops up Treasuries through its monthly bond purchases. The central bank owns about 17 percent of the market.
U.S. regulators proposed last month that bank holding companies have capital equal to 5 percent of their assets, and that their federally insured banking units hold capital equal to 6 percent of assets. The proposals go beyond those approved in 2010 by the 27-nation Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to prevent a replay of the 2008 financial crisis.
Global regulators also proposed an enhanced leverage ratio to measure equity to total assets, rather than formulas that let banks hold less capital for assets deemed less risky.
Barclays estimates that the repo market can shrink another 10 percent if the new regulations are implemented. Banks are already reducing repo positions at the end of each quarter to present more attractive balance sheets, with money funds seeing their balances with dealers falling about 15 percent in the final days of recent quarters, according to Barclays.

Europe’s Pain

In Europe, heightened regulations are also affecting the ability of financial institutions to facilitate bond trades. The region’s biggest banks must cut 661 billion euros ($883 billion) of assets and generate 47 billion euros of capital to comply with new regulatory capital requirements, according to an analysis by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.
“Before the crisis, we were able to execute clips of 20 million euros worth of corporate or covered bonds in just one or two minutes,” Stefan Kreuzkamp, the co-head of fixed income for Europe at Frankfurt-based Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management said in an Aug. 15 telephone interview. “These days, it could take a couple of hours,” said Kreuzkamp, whose firm has about 1 trillion euros in assets.
At the same time, 11 European Union states have agreed to a financial transaction tax, known as the FTT, that the European Commission estimates may raise as much as 35 billion euros a year. Stock and bond trades would be taxed at a rate of 0.1 percent and derivatives at 0.01 percent. The levy on bond transactions would include overnight transactions.

‘Too Far’

If the FTT is imposed in the current form, it will end the repo market in Europe, said Richard Comotto, a senior visiting fellow at the University of Reading’s International Capital Market Association Center in southern England who has published reports on the implications of new bank regulations. The ICMA estimates that to cover the tax, a repo market maker would have to charge a spread on an overnight repurchase agreement of 72.05 percentage points.
“While a lot of regulation is worthwhile and long overdue, it is coming too far and too much in a short space of time,”Comotto said in an interview. “Most of them are not well thought out.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Liz Capo McCormick in New York at emccormick7@bloomberg.net; Anchalee Worrachate in London at aworrachate@bloomberg.net