1. What is public consultation and absorption?
With the approval of the State Council, it was open to the public for comments on 20171017 for one month. In the process of soliciting opinions, financial institutions, experts and scholars, the public and other parties have given extensive attention. The People's Bank of China, together with relevant departments, made repeated studies and prudent decisions on the feedback opinions, fully absorbed scientific and reasonable opinions, and combined with the results of market impact assessment, revised and improved the relevant clauses as follows.
In terms of investment in non-standardized debt assets, the Opinions clarified the core elements of standardized debt assets, and proposed regulatory measures such as term matching and quota management to guide commercial banks to reduce the scale of non-standard stocks in an orderly manner.
Regarding the net value management of products, the Opinions require that the asset management (hereinafter referred to as asset management) business should not promise to guarantee the principal and income, clarify the identification and punishment standards of rigid redemption, encourage the measurement of invested financial assets at market value, and allow financial assets that meet certain conditions to be measured in amortized cost, taking into account that some assets do not yet have the conditions to be measured at market value, taking into account market demand.
In terms of eliminating multi-layer nesting, the Opinions unified the regulatory standards of similar asset management products, requiring the regulatory authorities to implement equal access to asset management business, promoting asset management products to obtain equal subject status, and eliminating the motivation of multi-layer nesting from the root. At the same time, the nesting level is limited to one layer, and it is forbidden to carry out multi-layer nesting and channel business.
In terms of unified leverage level, the Opinions fully consider market demand and affordability, set different debt leverage according to the risk level of different products, and set different grading ratios for products that are allowed to be graded with reference to industry regulatory standards.
In terms of setting a reasonable transition period, after in-depth calculation and evaluation, compared with the exposure draft, the Opinions extended the transition period to the end of 2020, giving financial institutions sufficient time for adjustment and transformation. Appropriate arrangements will also be made for non-standard stock assets that have not expired after the end of the transition period to guide financial institutions to return to their balance sheets and ensure market stability.
2. What is the background of the Opinions?
In recent years, the asset management business of financial institutions in China has developed rapidly and its scale has been rising. By the end of 20 17, regardless of cross-shareholding factors, the total scale has reached 1000 billion yuan. Among them, the balance of off-balance-sheet wealth management products of banks was 22.2 trillion yuan, the trust balance of trust companies was 210.9 trillion yuan, and the balance of Public Offering of Fund, private equity funds, asset management plans of securities companies, funds and their subsidiaries and insurance asset management plans were1/kloc-0.6 trillion yuan and1/kloc respectively. At the same time, non-financial institutions such as Internet companies and various investment consulting companies are also very active in asset management business.
Asset management business has played an active role in meeting residents' wealth management needs, improving the profitability of financial institutions, optimizing the social financing structure and supporting the real economy. However, due to the inconsistent regulatory rules and standards of similar asset management businesses, regulatory arbitrage activities are frequent, some products are nested in multiple layers, and the risk base is unclear. The fund pool model contains liquidity risk, some products become credit channels, and rigid redemption is common, forming a shadow bank with insufficient supervision outside the formal financial system, which interferes with macro-control to some extent, increases the cost of social financing, affects the quality and efficiency of financial services real economy, and intensifies the cross-industry and cross-market transmission of risks. Under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the People's Bank of China, together with China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the CSRC, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and other departments, adheres to the problem orientation, starts with making up the shortcomings of supervision and improving the effectiveness of supervision, and formulates this opinion according to the development and supervision practice of asset management business of financial institutions in various industries.
3. What are the general ideas and principles of the Opinions?
The general idea of the Opinions is to formulate unified regulatory standards according to the types of asset management products, make consistent provisions for similar asset management businesses, implement fair market access and supervision, eliminate regulatory arbitrage space to the maximum extent, and create a good institutional environment for the healthy development of asset management businesses.
The Opinions follow the following basic principles: First, adhere to the bottom line thinking of strictly controlling risks, reduce stock risks and prevent incremental risks. Second, adhere to the fundamental goal of serving the real economy. We should not only give full play to the function of asset management business, effectively serve the investment and financing needs of the real economy, but also strictly regulate and guide, avoid the loss of funds from reality to reality, and prevent products from being too complicated to aggravate cross-industry, cross-market and cross-regional risks. Third, adhere to the regulatory philosophy of combining macro-prudential management with micro-prudential supervision, and combining institutional supervision with functional supervision, realize comprehensive and unified coverage of asset management business of various financial institutions, and take effective regulatory measures to strengthen the protection of financial consumers' rights and interests. Fourth, adhere to targeted problem orientation, set unified regulatory standards for asset management business, such as multi-layer nesting, unclear leverage, serious arbitrage and frequent speculation, and at the same time adhere to the advantages and disadvantages of financial innovation, leaving room for development. Fifth, adhere to active, steady and prudent promotion, combine risk prevention with orderly regulation, fully consider market affordability, set a reasonable transition period, strengthen market communication, and effectively guide market expectations.
4. What is the scope of application of the Opinions? Which products of which institutions are included?
The Opinions are mainly applicable to the asset management business of financial institutions, that is, financial institutions such as banks, trusts, securities, funds, futures, insurance asset management institutions and financial asset investment companies accept the entrustment of investors and conduct investment management on the property of the entrusted investors. Financial institutions perform the obligation of honesty, credit and diligence to the interests of customers and charge corresponding management fees. Customers bear investment risks and gain profits. Financial institutions can charge reasonable performance rewards, but they must be included in the management fees and correspond to the products one by one. Asset management products include bank non-guaranteed wealth management products, fund trusts, securities companies, subsidiaries of securities companies, fund management companies, fund management subsidiaries, futures companies, insurance asset management institutions and asset management products issued by financial asset investment companies. This opinion does not apply to the asset securitization business carried out in accordance with the rules promulgated by the financial management department and the pension products issued in accordance with the rules promulgated by the human resources and social security department.
In view of the chaos of non-financial institutions carrying out asset management business in violation of laws and regulations, the Opinions also clearly put forward that non-financial institutions are not allowed to issue and sell asset management products unless otherwise stipulated by the state in accordance with the concept of "not engaging in financial business without approval, and financial business must be subject to financial supervision". "Unless otherwise stipulated by the state" mainly refers to the issuance and sale of private investment funds. Private investment funds shall be governed by special laws and administrative regulations concerning private investment funds. If there is no clear stipulation, this opinion shall apply. The relevant provisions on venture capital funds and government-funded industrial investment funds shall be formulated separately.
What is the basis and purpose of the verb (the abbreviation of verb) Opinions on the classification of asset management products? What are the main differences in the supervision of different types of products?
The classification of asset management products and the application of uniform regulatory rules to similar products are the basis of the Opinions. The Opinions classify asset management products from two dimensions. First, from the source of funds, according to the way of raising funds, it can be divided into two categories: public offering products and private offering products. Public offering is aimed at the public offering with weak risk identification and tolerance, which has strong risk spillover and stricter regulatory requirements than private offering in terms of investment scope. It mainly invests in standardized debt assets and listed stocks, and shall not invest in the equity of unlisted enterprises unless otherwise stipulated by laws and regulations and financial management departments. Private placement products are issued to qualified investors with strong risk identification and tolerance. The regulatory requirements are relatively loose, and the autonomy of market players is more respected. It can be invested in creditor's rights assets, listed or traded stocks, unlisted enterprise equity, and other assets that meet the requirements of laws and regulations. Second, from the perspective of capital utilization, according to the nature of investment, it can be divided into four categories: fixed income products, equity products, commodity and financial derivatives, and mixed products. According to the principle that the higher the investment risk is, the stricter the grading leverage limit is, and different grading proportion limits are set, the information disclosure emphasis of various products is also different.
The purpose of classifying products from the above two dimensions is: First, strengthen functional supervision according to the principle of "substance is more important than form". In practice, financial institutions in different industries carry out asset management business and apply different regulatory rules and standards according to the types of institutions, which creates space for regulatory arbitrage. Therefore, it is necessary to classify asset management products according to their business functions and apply uniform supervision standards to similar products. The second is to implement the concept of "selling the right products to the right investors": on the one hand, public offering and private placement correspond to two different types of investment groups, namely the public and qualified investors, which reflect different requirements for investor suitability management; On the other hand, asset management products can be divided into different types according to the nature of investment, so as to distinguish the risk level of products. At the same time, it is required to clearly indicate the product type when issuing asset management products, which can avoid "selling dog meat" and effectively protect the rights and interests of financial consumers.
6. In what ways did the Opinions strengthen the qualification requirements and management responsibilities of financial institutions to carry out asset management business?
Asset management business is a financial service of "entrusted by people to manage money on behalf of others". In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of customers, the Opinions require financial institutions to meet certain qualification requirements and earnestly perform their management duties. First, financial institutions should establish management systems and management systems suitable for the development of asset management business, with good corporate governance and sound risk management, internal control and accountability mechanisms. Second, financial institutions should improve the qualification identification, training, assessment and accountability system of asset managers to ensure that they have the necessary professional knowledge, industry experience and management ability, and abide by the code of conduct and professional ethics. Third, employees who violate relevant laws and regulations and the provisions of the Opinions shall be punished according to law until their qualifications are cancelled.
7. What are the criteria for the identification of standardized creditor's rights assets? How does the Opinions regulate the investment of asset management products in non-standardized debt assets?
The Opinions clarify that standardized creditor's rights assets should have the following characteristics: equal differentiation, tradeability, full information disclosure, centralized registration, independent custody, fair pricing, perfect liquidity mechanism, and trading in the approved trading market in the State Council. Specific identification rules shall be formulated separately by the People's Bank of China in conjunction with the financial supervision and regulation department. Creditor's rights assets other than standardized creditor's rights assets are non-standard.
Non-standard has the functions of term, liquidity and credit conversion, with low transparency and weak liquidity, which circumvents regulatory requirements such as macro-control policies and capital constraints, and some of them are invested in restricted areas, with obvious characteristics of shadow banking. To this end, the Opinions stipulate that non-standard investment in asset management products should meet the regulatory standards of financial supervision and management departments on quota management and liquidity management, and strictly match the term. The purpose of formulating the above norms is to prevent asset management business from becoming a disguised credit business, prevent and control shadow banking risks, shorten financing chain, reduce financing costs, and improve the efficiency and level of financial services to the real economy. While standardizing non-standard investment, in order to better meet the financing needs of the real economy, it is necessary to vigorously develop direct financing, build a multi-level capital market system, further deepen the reform of the financial system, and improve the efficiency and level of financial services to the real economy.
8. How does the Opinions prevent the liquidity risk of asset management products? How to standardize the fund pool operation of financial institutions?
In the process of asset management, some financial institutions operate the fund pool of raised funds through rolling issuance, collective operation and separate pricing. In this mode of operation, multiple asset management products correspond to multiple assets, and the income of each product cannot be identified from which asset, so the risk is difficult to measure. At the same time, putting the raised short-term funds into long-term creditor's rights or equity projects increases the liquidity risk of asset management products. Once it is difficult to raise follow-up funds, it is prone to liquidity tension.
On the basis of prohibiting the cash pool business, emphasizing the separate management of asset management products and establishing separate accounts, the Opinions require financial institutions to strengthen the long-term management of products and stipulate that the term of closed asset management products should not be less than 90 days, so as to correct the short-term tendency of asset management products and effectively reduce and eliminate the term mismatch and liquidity risk of capital sources and users. In addition, the Opinions explicitly prohibit some institutions from breaking through the number of investors in disguise by setting up multiple asset management products for a single financing project. In order to prevent the risk of the same asset from spreading to multiple products, the Opinions require that the total capital scale of the same financial institution issuing multiple asset management products to invest in the same asset should not exceed 30 billion yuan. Those exceeding this scale must be approved by the financial supervision and regulation department.
9. What is the relationship between the risk reserve provision or capital measurement requirements of asset management products in the Opinions and the relevant standards of existing institutions? How to connect the two?
Asset management business belongs to the off-balance-sheet business of financial institutions, and investment risks should be borne by investors. However, in order to cope with operational risks or other unexpected risks, it is still necessary to establish a certain risk compensation mechanism, extract the corresponding risk reserve, or consider relevant risk factors when measuring capital. At present, different industries have different requirements for risk reserve provision or capital measurement of asset management products: banks implement capital supervision and measure a certain proportion of operational risk capital according to wealth management business income; Asset management plans of securities companies, asset management plans for specific customers of Public Offering of Fund and fund subsidiaries, and some insurance asset management plans are accrued with risk reserves according to management fee income, but the proportions are different; The trust company shall accrue the trust compensation according to 5% of the after-tax profit.
Considering the current requirements comprehensively, the Opinions stipulate that financial institutions should set aside risk reserves according to 65,438+00% of the management fee income of asset management products, or measure operational risk capital or corresponding risk capital reserves according to regulations. When the risk reserve balance reaches 65438+ 0% of the product balance, it may not be withdrawn. Risk reserve is mainly used to make up for the losses caused to asset management products or investors by financial institutions in violation of laws and regulations, asset management product agreements, operational errors or technical failures. Financial institutions shall regularly report the use of risk reserve to the financial management department. It should be noted that for financial institutions, such as trust companies, which are not applicable to risk reserve accrual or capital measurement at present, the Opinions do not require repeated accrual on this basis, but are regulated by the financial supervision and regulation department in specific rules according to the standards of the Opinions.
X. Why should we break the rigid redemption of asset management products? How to implement product net worth management?
Rigid redemption deviates from the essence of asset management products, which is "entrusted by others to manage money on behalf of others", raises the risk-free rate of return and interferes with the price of funds, which not only affects the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, but also weakens market discipline, leading to some investors taking risks and speculating, financial institutions failing to perform their duties and serious moral hazard. Breaking the rigid redemption has become a social consciousness, so the Opinions have made a series of detailed arrangements. First of all, when defining asset management business, financial institutions are required not to promise to protect capital and income, and not to pay products in any form when payment is difficult. Second, guide financial institutions to change the expected rate of return model, strengthen product net value management, and clarify accounting principles. The third is to clearly put forward the determination of rigid redemption, including the violation of the principle of net worth determination to protect the income, the adoption of rolling issuance and other ways to protect the income, the raised funds to pay by themselves or entrust other institutions to compensate. Fourth, classified punishment. Deposit-taking financial institutions shall pay the deposit reserve and deposit insurance premium in full, and non-deposit licensed financial institutions shall be corrected and punished by the financial supervision and regulation department and the People's Bank of China according to law. In addition, the audit responsibility and reporting requirements of external audit institutions have been strengthened.
In practice, some asset management products adopt the expected rate of return model and excessively use the amortized cost method to measure the invested financial assets. The risk of basic assets can not be reflected in the change of product value in time, and investors are not clear about the risks they bear, thus lacking the awareness of taking risks themselves. However, financial institutions convert the part of investment income that exceeds the expected income into management fees or directly merge it into intermediary business income, instead of giving it to investors, so it is difficult to ask investors to bear their own risks. In order to promote the transformation of expected-return products into net-worth products, so that investors can take their own risks on the basis of making clear the risks and enjoying the benefits, the Opinions emphasize that performance rewards of financial institutions should be included in management fees and correspond to products one by one, and require financial institutions to strengthen the management of net-worth products, which should be audited and confirmed by custodian institutions and external auditors, and the specific accounting principles should be clarified at the same time. First of all, financial assets invested by asset management products are required to adhere to the principle of fair value measurement and encourage the use of market value measurement. At the same time, some assets that meet one of the following conditions are allowed to be measured in amortized cost: first, investment financial assets that are held and expired for the purpose of collecting contract cash flow; Second, the product operates in a closed way, and the invested financial assets do not have an active trading market for the time being, or there is no quotation in the active market, so it is impossible to reliably measure the fair value through valuation technology.
XI。 How to standardize the leverage level of asset management products?
In order to maintain the smooth operation of financial markets such as bonds and stocks and curb asset price bubbles, the leverage level of asset management products should be controlled. The leverage of asset management products can be divided into two categories: one is debt leverage, that is, after the product is raised, financial institutions increase investment leverage through debt behaviors such as borrowing and pledge repurchase; One is classified leverage, that is, financial institutions divide products into priority and inferior shares, and priority investors provide financing leverage to inferior investors. In terms of debt leverage, the Opinions set the upper limit of debt ratio (total assets/net assets) of 140%, 200%, 140% and 200% for private asset management products such as open public offering, closed public offering and graded private placement, respectively, and prohibited financial institutions from pledge financing with the product share entrusted for management. In terms of graded products, the Opinions prohibit public offerings and open private offerings from sharing grading. In classified closed private placement products, the classification ratio (priority share/inferior share) of fixed income products shall not exceed 3: 1, equity products shall not exceed 1, and commodities, financial derivatives and mixed products shall not exceed 2: 1.
12. How to eliminate multi-layer nesting and restrict channel business?
The multi-layer nesting of asset management products not only increases the complexity of products, but also leads to unclear underlying assets, which also lengthens the capital chain and raises the cost of social financing. The embedding of a large number of graded products also leads to leverage multiplication and aggravates market volatility. In order to fundamentally curb the motivation of multi-layer nesting, the Opinions clarify that asset management products enjoy equal status in account opening, property rights registration and legal proceedings. And require financial supervision and management departments to have equal access to all kinds of financial institutions to carry out asset management business. At the same time, the nested hierarchy is standardized, allowing asset management products to invest in another asset management product, but the invested products are not allowed to invest in products other than public securities investment funds, and it is forbidden to carry out channel business to avoid regulatory requirements such as investment scope and leverage constraints. Considering the actual situation, financial institutions with insufficient investment capacity can still entrust other institutions to invest, but they should not be exempted from their responsibilities. The trustee of publicly offered asset management products must be a financial institution, and the trustee may not entrust it again.
Thirteen. What specifications did the Opinions make for the smart investment business? What are the main considerations?
The development of financial technology is profoundly changing the service model of the financial industry, especially in the field of asset management. In recent years, smart investment consultants have risen rapidly in the US market and developed rapidly in China. At present, dozens of organizations have launched this business. The use of artificial intelligence technology to carry out investment consulting, asset management and other businesses, because most customers are long-tailed customers, the risk tolerance is low. If investors are not properly managed and risk warnings are not in place, it is easy to cause unstable events. Moreover, the homogenization of the algorithm may lead to pro-cyclical high-frequency trading and aggravate market volatility. The "black box attribute" of the algorithm may also make it a tool to evade supervision, and the risks such as technical limitations and network security cannot be ignored. To this end, from a forward-looking perspective, the Opinions distinguish between two situations in which financial institutions use artificial intelligence technology to carry out investment consulting and asset management business, and regulate them respectively. On the one hand, institutions that have obtained the qualification of investment consultants can use artificial intelligence technology to carry out investment consulting business, and non-financial institutions are not allowed to operate beyond the scope or carry out asset management business in disguise with the help of intelligent investment consultants. On the other hand, when financial institutions use artificial intelligence technology to carry out asset management business, they must not exaggerate publicity or mislead investors. They should report the main parameters of the model and the main logic of asset allocation, clarify the transaction process, strengthen trace management, and avoid homogenization of algorithms. When the algorithm model has defects or the information system is abnormal, which leads to herding effect, manual intervention should be forced.
14. What is the regulatory philosophy of asset management business? What measures does regulatory coordination include?
In view of the disadvantages of arbitrage space caused by standard differences under separate supervision, it is necessary to strengthen supervision coordination, strengthen macro-prudential management, implement functional supervision and standardize asset management business in accordance with the principle of "substance is more important than form". According to the Opinions, the People's Bank of China is responsible for the macro-prudential management of asset management business, and conducts unified standard supervision according to product types rather than institution types, and applies the same supervision standards to similar products, reducing the supervision vacuum and eliminating arbitrage space. The financial supervision and management department shall strengthen the functional supervision in the market access and daily supervision of asset management business. The People's Bank of China took the lead in establishing a unified asset management product reporting system and information system, and conducted real-time, comprehensive and dynamic monitoring of product sales, investment and redemption, laying a solid foundation for penetrating supervision. Continue to strengthen supervision and coordination, and the financial supervision and management department will study and formulate supporting rules within the framework of the Opinions, and the supporting rules should be connected with each other to avoid new regulatory arbitrage and unfair competition.
15. What are the requirements for non-financial institutions to carry out asset management business?
At present, in addition to financial institutions, non-financial institutions such as Internet companies and various investment consulting companies are also very active in asset management business. Due to the lack of market access and continuous supervision, product splitting, misleading propaganda, misappropriation of funds and other issues are more prominent, and even evolved into illegal fund-raising, illegal absorption of public deposits and illegal issuance of securities, disrupting financial order and threatening social stability. In order to standardize the market order and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors, the Opinions clearly put forward that asset management business, as a financial business, must be brought into financial supervision, and non-financial institutions may not issue or sell asset management products, unless otherwise stipulated by the state. "Except as otherwise provided by the state" mainly refers to the issuance and sale of private investment funds, and the special laws and administrative regulations of private investment funds are applicable. If there are no clear provisions in the special laws and administrative regulations of private investment funds, the Opinions shall apply. Without the permission of the financial supervision and regulation department, non-financial institutions and individuals may not sell asset management products on a commission basis. For non-financial institutions to carry out asset management business in violation of laws and regulations, especially using the Internet platform to split and sell investment targets with investment thresholds, covering up product risks through credit enhancement measures, and setting up a secondary trading market for products, we will carry out standardized clean-up in accordance with state regulations. Non-financial institutions that carry out asset management business in violation of laws and regulations shall be punished according to law, and those who promise or make rigid payment at the same time shall be severely punished according to law.
Sixteen. How to set the transition period of the Opinions? How to implement the "new and old cuts"?
In order to ensure a smooth transition, the Opinions fully consider the term of existing asset management products, the market scale and the term and scale of invested assets, and take into account the reasonable issuance of incremental asset management products, and propose to set the transition period according to the principle of "cutting off the old and the new". The transition period is set as "from the date of publication of opinions to the end of 2020", which is one and a half years longer than the draft for comments, giving financial institutions more time for rectification and transformation. During the transition period, the issuance of new products by financial institutions shall comply with the provisions of the Opinions; In order to continue the unexpired assets invested in existing products and maintain the necessary liquidity and market stability, old products can be issued for docking, but they should be strictly controlled within the overall scale of existing products and compressed in an orderly manner to prevent cliff effect at the end of the transition period. Financial institutions also need to formulate a rectification plan for the transition period, define the time schedule, and submit it to the relevant financial supervision and management departments for approval and supervision, and at the same time report it to the People's Bank of China to give appropriate regulatory incentives to institutions that have completed rectification ahead of schedule. After the transition period, the asset management products of financial institutions will be fully regulated in accordance with the Opinions (except for those that have not established factoring companies and cannot meet the requirements of independent custody of third parties), and financial institutions may not issue or exist asset management products that violate the Opinions.