The asset management industry is full of energy in returning to its origins
Our reporter Chen Guojing Lu Min
After the transition period ended smoothly, the new regulations on asset management will be implemented from this year.
In the more than three years from its implementation to its implementation, this new asset management regulation, which is considered to be the most extensive and strictest in the industry, not only unifies the regulatory standards, but also reshapes the pattern of the asset management market and urges the industry to return to its roots. , to prevent and resolve risks such as shadow banking, and lead the future direction of asset management, which will ultimately play an important role in serving the real economy and meeting residents’ wealth management needs.
Industry transitions smoothly
According to data from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, by the end of 2021, capital-guaranteed wealth management products and non-compliant short-term wealth management products have been cleared. Transformation, product investment and operation were further standardized; the proportion of financing trusts continued to decline, the channel business was significantly reduced, and the cumulative pressure reduction of non-compliant trust projects exceeded 80%.
Before the release of the "Guiding Opinions on Regulating the Asset Management Business of Financial Institutions" on April 27, 2018, by the end of 2017, the scale of my country's financial institutions' asset management business reached one trillion yuan, involving banks, trusts, securities, funds, futures, insurance There are many products of various types of institutions, and the scale is huge, which can affect the whole body.
Before the implementation of the new regulations on asset management, the asset management business has provided new financing channels for companies that are difficult to raise funds from the capital market or obtain loans from banks with high costs or even difficult to obtain funds. Increased corporate financing costs.
In order to avoid increasingly strict supervision, the transaction structure of many asset management products has multiple layers of nesting, which lengthens the asset management business chain, which increases the financing cost of enterprises.
After the implementation of the new asset management regulations, Wei Xing, an expert in securities asset management business, pointed out that due to inconsistent regulatory standards, the asset management industry has exposed many chaos in the process of rapid development.
The chaos is highlighted by the multi-layered nesting of products, the rapid expansion of non-standardized debt asset investment, and the widespread existence of rigid redemption. The off-balance sheet assets of industrial financial institutions inflated and fat, deviating from the original intention of developing direct financing.
In this context, the new regulations on asset management were released and implemented, targeting the root causes of shadow banking and various chaos, and taking precise measures to unify regulatory standards based on product types rather than institutional types, strictly regulate non-standard investment in asset management products, and resolutely break rigid payment. Standardize the capital pool and realize the "precise bomb disposal" of shadow banking.
At the same time, taking into account the actual situation of the rectification, a long transition period until the end of 2020 has been set for the new asset management regulations from the very beginning.
In 2020, after comprehensively considering factors such as the impact of the epidemic, macro environment, market impact, and financing of the real economy, six departments including the People's Bank of China decided to extend the transition period for the new asset management regulations by one year to the end of 2021.
The extension of the transition period has effectively reduced the volatility brought by the rectification to the financial market and the real economy.
By the end of 2021, the banking and insurance industry has basically completed the rectification tasks during the transition period of the asset management business, which is generally in line with expectations.
All risks cleared
Resolving high leverage and shadow banking risks in asset management business is an important part of preventing and mitigating major financial risks.
During the transition period of more than three years, the asset management industry has been speeding up the pace of product transformation and upgrading, while all risk factors have been cleared.
From the perspective of leverage ratio, the investment leverage of asset management products has been significantly reduced. Statistics show that the average leverage ratio of bank wealth management products has decreased by about 2 percentage points compared with 2018, and the planned leverage ratio of trust products has decreased by 1.32 percentage points.
During the same period, the scale of shadow banking has declined significantly, with a drop of about 20 trillion yuan from the historical peak.
According to data released by the China Trustee Association, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of trust assets entrusted by the trust industry under management was 20.44 trillion yuan, down about 22% from the peak in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The current scale of trusts invested in financial institutions has been reduced by more than half from the high of 4.11 trillion yuan at the end of 2017. As of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the balance of trust funds invested in financial institutions was 1.90 trillion yuan.
Zhang Rui, director of the China Marketing Society and professor of economics, believes that the era of rough and rough operation of off-balance sheet business is over, and the era of refined connotation operation has come.
Due to the closure of various nested channels, the unification of leverage ratios, and the complete breaking of newly fulfilled commitments, it is no longer possible for asset management institutions to increase income by investing in non-standard assets to achieve the purpose of making money with money, instead of which is market competition. transparency and intensification.
For example, from the perspective of changes in wealth management products, the proportion of net worth products is constantly rising.
The wealth management market data for the third quarter of 2021 released by the Banking Wealth Management Registration and Custody Center shows that the scale of net worth products has increased steadily, accounting for 86.56%, an increase of 26.08 percentage points over the same period of the previous year.
Pack up and go
As my country has entered a new stage of development, the asset management industry has also entered a new stage of quality improvement and upgrading.
After the transition period of the new asset management regulations ends, the industry will repackage and set off again.
The asset management industry is closely related to the real economy, and more closely related to the wealth management needs of residents.
Statistics from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission show that as of the end of November 2021, the assets management products of banking and insurance institutions have directly allocated nearly 40 trillion yuan of funds to the real economy, accounting for about 13% of the stock of social financing in the same period; wealth management, insurance asset management, trust Funds have invested more than 27 trillion yuan in stocks and bonds through direct or indirect means, providing a long-term and stable source of funds for the capital market.
As of the end of 2021, there were 36,300 surviving bank wealth management products, generating nearly 1 trillion yuan in income for investors throughout the year.
This means that after the official implementation of the new regulations on asset management, the reform of the asset management industry still needs to accelerate the pace.
Cao Yu, vice chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that he will continue to promote the in-depth reform of the banking and insurance asset management business. Specific measures include accelerating the development of professional and characteristic institutional teams; insisting on strict supervision and strong supervision; surroundings.
Up to now, 29 wealth management companies have been approved for establishment, 23 have been put into operation, and 33 insurance asset management companies have been established.
Cao Yu emphasized that he will continue to adhere to the principle of "mature one, approve one", steadily promote the approval of wealth management companies and insurance asset management companies, do a good job in the operation evaluation of established institutions, and actively explore the model path for small and medium-sized banks to set up wealth management companies. Implement the policy of expanding opening-up and attracting foreign investment, and build an ecological system that exhibits the strengths of various exhibitions, organic cooperation, and coexistence.
Industry experts believe that differentiated competition will be the next development trend of the asset management industry.
Zhang Rui pointed out that the new regulations on asset management will release greater energy for reshaping and reconstruction in the asset management market in the future.
Asset management institutions return to their main business, focusing on "specialized and special", not only to make full use of the advantages of resource endowment for in-depth cultivation, but also to strengthen the precise customization and personalized design of products for different customer groups, and to carry out differentiated competition.
Ba Shusong, Chief Economist of China Banking Association and Executive Dean of Peking University HSBC Financial Research Institute, pointed out in the "2021 China Asset Management Industry Development Report" that in the early transition stage of new asset management regulations, some asset management institutions prefer Adopt a follow-up strategy, that is, observe which types of products are more popular in the market, or which types of business models are more cost-effective, and then imitate them and spread them on a large scale.
It is not uncommon for the competition phenomenon of "homogenization" between the same type of asset management institutions.
After the transition period of the new asset management regulations ends, the effectiveness of following or imitating the strategy will inevitably be greatly reduced.
Based on the different resource endowments and capability boundaries of different asset management institutions, the pattern of "differentiated" competition among asset management institutions will gradually take shape.
In the process of development, various asset management institutions need to clarify their own capability boundaries and carefully choose their own strategic positioning; as long as they can create a competitive advantage on a suitable track, they can gain a broad market space.