As the guardian of the stable and healthy development of the fund industry, the regulatory authorities have frequently taken measures in recent days to directly attack various problems currently faced by the industry.
Rapid expansion
Concerns about the development of the fund began to appear.
Authoritative statistics show that by the end of 10 this year, 59 fund management companies had managed 34/kloc-0 funds, with a total fund size of 2,055.338 billion yuan and a net asset value of 33120.02 million yuan, 2.8 times and 3.8 times that of the beginning of the year respectively.
From the perspective of a single company, the fund's third quarterly report shows that the assets of 10 fund companies including Boss, Huaxia, Nanfang and Yifangda have exceeded 100 billion yuan. Among them, boss and Huaxia both exceeded 200 billion yuan. This figure doubled when it was disclosed in the second quarter of this year.
Experts believe that the rapid expansion of the scale of the fund industry, on the one hand, is due to the emergence of the wealth effect of the stock market and the enhancement of people's awareness of financial management. As an expert financial management method, funds are increasingly recognized by investors; On the other hand, fund companies deliberately pursue the rapid expansion of fund scale in a short period of time by adopting various means. "This practice is easy to understand." Industry insiders told reporters. As we all know, the profit models of Public Offering of Fund and private equity funds are obviously different. Private equity funds mainly share profits with investors by improving the yield of investment fund products. Public Offering of Fund, on the other hand, needs to expand the fund scale to get more management fees.
It is driven by the pursuit of profit that the cemetery fund itself has the impulse to expand its scale. In order to achieve this goal, fund companies have used various means.
Recently, in order to cater to the "greedy and cheap" psychology of investors, some fund companies are keen on continuous marketing through large-scale dividends, fund splitting and other ways that may mislead investors; In fund sales, some fund companies deceive or falsely publicize investors; Some fund companies ignore the concept of value investment, participate in insider trading and short-term trading, transfer benefits, and pursue short-term gains and performance rankings.
"In fact, these new phenomena in the fund industry are ultimately aimed at serving the ultimate goal of expanding scale and making greater profits." The above-mentioned insiders pointed out that the rapid expansion of scale has brought more profits to fund companies on the one hand, and laid hidden dangers for their sustainable development on the other.
The source told reporters that to a certain extent, Public Offering of Fund is a passive investment. As long as new subscription funds flow in, the fund needs to buy stocks. In the case of large-scale redemption, the fund was forced to sell shares. In many cases, even if fund managers have different views on the market, they have to buy and sell stocks against their will. "In other words, if the fund size cannot increase or decrease within a moderate range, it will become a booster for market ups and downs."
At the same time, the rapid expansion of fund scale will also challenge the management ability of fund companies. Since the beginning of this year, the vigorous development of the fund market has not only created a number of "giant" fund companies, but also the scale of some small fund companies has advanced by leaps and bounds. However, the fund company failed to keep up with the personnel reserve, system operation, risk management and other software and hardware in time, which also led to security risks.
The regulatory framework for fund sales has been formed.
Last month 19, the CSRC officially issued two provisions: Guiding Opinions on Internal Control of Securities Investment Fund Sales Institutions (hereinafter referred to as "Internal Control Opinions") and Guiding Opinions on the Applicability of Securities Investment Funds Sales (hereinafter referred to as "Applicability Opinions"). Relevant persons said that at present, the Detailed Rules for the Management of Business Qualifications of Fund Sales Organizations, the Regulations on the Management of Fund Evaluation Consulting Business and the Guiding Opinions on Fund Sales and Operating Expenses have all been formulated and will be promulgated in due course.
From the content point of view, the Internal Control Opinions has made detailed provisions on the control principles, sales decision-making process, sales execution process, accounting system, information system, supervision and inspection of fund sales institutions. Applicability opinion not only stipulates the introduction of investor suitability survey in fund sales, but also requires fund institutions to conduct careful investigation and evaluation when selecting fund products and fund managers.
"It should be said that in March this year, the" Regulations on the Management of Information Management Platform for Securities Investment Fund Sales Business "was promulgated, and with the above two' opinions', the fund sales supervision framework has taken shape." Industry experts said in an interview with reporters that "the supervision of fund sales is changing from simple access supervision to behavior supervision."
The above experts pointed out that in fact, the principle of fund sales applicability has been applied in mature foreign markets for many years. This principle will be introduced into China and promulgated by the regulatory authorities in the form of regulations, which will be beneficial to the healthy and sustainable development of the fund industry in China in the future.
The so-called "applicability principle of fund sales" simply means "selling the right fund products to the right fund investors". Its core content is: fund sales organizations know investors' investment purpose, investment period, investment experience, financial situation and risk tolerance level through questionnaires, and then sell products with different risk levels according to customers' risk tolerance.
"The promulgation of the above regulations comes at the right time," commented the insiders. Judging from the actual situation of fund sales this year, various irregular behaviors abound. The most prominent thing is that fund sales organizations and personnel cheat or sell some fund products to investors without fully revealing the risks, regardless of investors' risk tolerance.
Some fund holders said in an interview with reporters that the fund products they currently hold were purchased under the recommendation of fund sales staff. However, when salespeople introduced a certain fund product to them, most of them didn't mention the possible risks of the product.
Most fund holders told reporters that there are so many kinds of fund products on the market that they can't do it at all-understand. And if you want to have a clear judgment on fund products, you need to build on certain professional knowledge, which ordinary investors simply can't do. In contrast, fund salespeople may have higher professional quality, so they are more inclined to listen to their opinions.
"Because of the prevalence of this psychology, fund sales organizations and personnel can easily satisfy their own interests by inducing investors, which is especially obvious when the fund market is hot. If the sales behavior cannot be effectively supervised, it will bring harm to investors and the development of the fund industry itself. " Industry experts said.
The expert pointed out that the establishment of the basic principles of fund sales, coupled with strict regulations on all aspects of fund sales, can effectively reduce the emergence of irregular sales behavior, ease the contradiction between investors and fund sales institutions, and be conducive to the smooth operation of the fund market.
Strictly control the illegal operation of funds.
The risks arising from fund sales are obviously not all the risks faced by the current fund industry, which can be seen from the high turnover rate of fund investment this year.
According to relevant statistics, in the first half of this year, the average turnover rate of funds reached 236%, and the turnover rate of some funds was as high as 358%. At the same time, among the top ten awkward stocks held by the fund, 6 1 fund has a replacement frequency of more than 70%.
"Although relative to the average market turnover rate, the turnover rate of fund investment is still at a low level. However, from the perspective of the value concept of fund investment, especially from the perspective of the investment operation of a single fund, the phenomenon of participating in short-term trading and changing hands frequently does exist. " The insider said. In addition, some fund managers focus their positions on a few stocks in pursuit of short-term performance at the expense of fund liquidity.
In response to some irregularities in fund investment, the regulatory authorities issued the Notice on Further Improving the Risk Management of the Fund Industry (hereinafter referred to as the Notice) on the 4th of this month.
The circular reiterated that fund management companies should firmly establish the concept of value investment, conduct stock trading and portfolio construction in strict accordance with the stock selection criteria, investment decision-making procedures, authorization system and transaction execution process according to the investment strategy, investment style and risk-return characteristics determined in each fund contract, maintain the consistency between fund investment style and fund contract, and prohibit speculative trading.
The Notice requires fund management companies to pay special attention to the monitoring of securities trading and all kinds of abnormal trading behaviors prohibited by laws and regulations and fund contracts, treat all kinds of assets under management fairly, and prohibit all kinds of improper transactions in the form of insider trading, related party transactions and interest transfer.
In view of the problem that some fund management companies unilaterally pursue performance ranking and short-term income while ignoring liquidity risk, the Notice requires fund management companies to pay close attention to the allocation of cash, bonds and stocks in each fund portfolio, the concentration of shareholding, the investment value and valuation risk of a single stock, strengthen liquidity risk assessment and stress testing, rationally allocate assets, formulate liquidity risk control plans in combination with market conditions and their own management capabilities, and effectively strengthen liquidity risk management of fund investment.
The regulatory authorities said that after the issuance of the notice, the regulatory authorities will further strengthen supervision and inspection, pay close attention to the company's sales, investment and other business activities, promote fund management companies and consignment agencies to enhance their awareness of risk prevention and compliance management, improve their risk control capabilities, maintain a fair market order, protect the interests of fund holders, and promote the sustained, stable and healthy development of the fund industry.