Recently, the central bank, together with the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and other departments, jointly drafted the "Guiding Opinions on Regulating the Asset Management Business of Financial Institutions (Draft for Comment)" and officially solicited opinions from the public.

The "Guiding Opinions" focus on issues such as arbitrary leverage, multi-layer nesting, and rigid redemption that existed in the early development of asset management business, and put forward specific requirements.

Experts said that once the "Guiding Opinions" are officially released, it will lay the foundation and point out the direction for the standardized development of the asset management business of financial institutions.

The asset management business is expected to bid farewell to the era of "barbaric growth" and gradually return to its roots.

Faced with the break of "rigid redemption", experts remind investors to comprehensively consider the balance of risks and returns when investing and managing money.

The "Guidance Opinions" jointly formulated by five ministries and commissions on asset management standards pointed out that in recent years, the asset management business of my country's financial institutions has developed rapidly and its scale has continued to rise. It has played an important role in meeting residents' wealth management needs, optimizing social financing structures, and supporting the financing needs of the real economy. positive effects.

However, due to inconsistent regulatory rules and standards for similar asset management businesses, there are also problems such as irregular business development, regulatory arbitrage, multi-layer nesting of products, rigid redemption, and circumvention of financial supervision and macro-control.

In order to standardize the asset management business of financial institutions, unify regulatory standards for similar asset management products, effectively prevent and control financial risks, and better serve the real economy, five ministries and commissions jointly drafted the "Guiding Opinions."

Article 29 of the "Guiding Opinions" stipulates to formulate unified regulatory standards according to product types and implement fair market access and supervision. The main contents include: First, establish the classification standards for asset management products.

The second is to reduce shadow banking risks.

The third is to reduce liquidity risks.

The fourth is to break the rigid payment.

Asset management business is a financial service that is "entrusted by others to manage wealth on behalf of others". Financial institutions are not allowed to promise to guarantee principal and return when carrying out asset management business. Financial management departments will take corresponding punishment measures for rigid redemption.

The fifth is to control the leverage level of asset management products.

Sixth, suppress multi-layer nesting and channel services.

Seventh, we will effectively strengthen supervision and coordination.

The eighth is to set up a reasonable transition period.

Taking into account the duration and market size of the existing asset management business, as well as the reasonable issuance of incremental asset management business, the "Guiding Opinions" set up a longer transition period, implement the "new and old separation", and do not implement "one size fits all".

The transition period is from the issuance and implementation of the Guiding Opinions to June 30, 2019.

In response to the chaos of non-financial institutions carrying out asset management business in violation of laws and regulations, the "Guiding Opinions" also follow the concept of "no financial business is allowed without approval, and financial business must be subject to financial supervision" and clearly states that unless otherwise stipulated by the state, non-financial

Institutions are not allowed to issue or sell asset management products.

The "Guiding Opinions" currently issued are only drafts for soliciting opinions. According to industry expectations, the corresponding detailed rules will be officially issued in 4-5 months.

Experts: Breaking "rigid redemption" is an inevitable trend. Dong Ximiao, executive director of Hengfeng Bank Research Institute, said that compared with the preliminary draft opinions circulated before, the "Guiding Opinions" have added information on capital pools, rigid redemption, identification of qualified investors, and regulations.

Period mismatches, etc.

Generally speaking, the "Guiding Opinions" are clear in principle and targeted, placing risk prevention in a prominent position, focusing on problems such as arbitrary leverage, multi-layer nesting, and rigid redemption that existed in the early development of asset management business.

He also pointed out that for a long time, the biggest problem in the development of the asset management industry has been to take advantage of different regulatory regulations to seek regulatory arbitrage.

Among all types of funds, funds from banks account for a relatively high proportion.

The "Guiding Opinions" will standardize channel business as the focus of governance and prohibit multi-layer nesting, which will first have an important impact on bank asset management business.

"From the perspective of the specific business of bank asset management, the development of capital-guaranteed financial management business will be affected. The "Guiding Opinions" require that asset management products must not promise to guarantee principal and return, and capital-guaranteed financial management may face redefinition or be included in the scope of deposit products. According to

The "Guiding Opinions" require that net value financial products may increase rapidly and become the mainstream of bank financial products. This puts forward higher requirements for banks' asset management capabilities, and banks should have strong asset allocation capabilities and investment research capabilities." Hengfeng.

Zhang Tao, a researcher at the Banking Research Institute, said.

According to industry insiders, the strict requirements for graded products in the "Guiding Opinions" point to increased leverage in the secondary market and reflect the policy orientation of financial deleveraging.

Zhang Bowei, a strategy researcher at Huashang Fund, pointed out that the further tightening of regulatory restrictions on structured products is intended to restrict investors from conducting leveraged transactions on single non-standard assets or standardized stocks and bonds, reflecting the policy orientation of financial deleveraging and restraining financial speculation.

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Dong Ximiao and Zhang Tao also emphasized that a more standardized and healthy development of the asset management business will benefit investors in the long run.

Faced with the breaking of "rigid redemption", investors must realize that this is an inevitable trend and must comprehensively consider the balance of risk and return when investing and managing money.