Securities Times reporter Pei Lirui
With the rapid development of the fund industry, the regulatory compliance requirements for fund sales agencies have also been continuously improved. Under the strong supervision, the reshuffle of fund agency sales has accelerated.
According to statistics from Securities Times reporters, as of July 13, in the past week, 4 independent fund sales agencies have been supervised and issued fines, and they have suffered from 3 to 12 months of suspension of business operations, and fund companies have also announced the suspension. or terminate the cooperation.
In addition to suspending business, since the beginning of this year, 6 independent sales agencies have actively or passively cancelled their fund sales licenses, and the industry has further survived the fittest.
4 in the past week
Fund sole sales agency fined
On July 12, the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau issued an announcement. After investigation, Beijing Weidongli Fund Sales Co., Ltd. had six violations. The Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau decided to order Beijing Weidongli Fund to suspend related businesses. and take administrative supervision measures by issuing a warning letter to Ji Changjun, general manager of Beijing Weidongli Fund.
According to the reporter's statistics, this is the fourth independent third-party fund sales agency that has received a regulatory fine in the past week. Under the heavy blow of supervision, the fund sales agency has accelerated the reshuffle.
Prior to this, on July 11, Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau issued regulatory fines to PCCW Fund and Main Road Fund two fund sales companies and their general managers. The related business was suspended for 12 months and 3 months respectively, and the general managers of the two companies, Qu Xinyue and Dong Yunwei, were both issued warning letters; It was ordered to suspend the supervision and management measures of related business for 6 months, and issued a warning letter to the chairman and legal representative Wang Zhengfeng.
On the whole, the above-mentioned non-compliance problems of independent fund sales institutions mostly occur in business management, compliance risk control, information services, assessment and evaluation.
In terms of operation and management, most of the above-mentioned independent fund sales institutions have the problem of "fewer than 20 people who have obtained the fund qualifications".
For example, the actual number of employees who obtained the qualification for fund practitioners in PCCW Fund is only 1, and it has not met the requirement of 20 for a long time; Magpie Fortune has 18 employees who obtained the qualification for fund practitioners in December 2021 and January 2022 respectively. and 17 people, which are lower than the statutory requirements, and some personnel from the marketing department and information technology department have not obtained the qualifications for fund practitioners.
There are also many loopholes in compliance risk control. For example, the sales manager and compliance risk control personnel of Magpie Fortune did not conduct internal compliance review on the fund promotion and recommendation materials used for sales, and did not issue compliance review opinions; In addition, there is a lack of necessary physical isolation and staffing between business departments, internal control is not perfect, and relevant systems are not updated in a timely manner.
For another example, in terms of information services, Weidongli Fund has not regularly proactively provided investors with information on fund holdings, timely provided information that has a significant impact on its investment decisions, nor has it agreed with investors on the method of providing relevant information; The information on some pages of the mobile APP is incorrectly displayed, and it does not have the functions of disclosing the information of fund practitioners, which does not meet the relevant requirements of the fund sales business information management platform.
In addition, many fund agency agencies still have the problem of poor financial status.
For example, the net assets of the micro-money fund are negative, and the net value of self-owned funds invested in cash, bank deposits, treasury bonds, funds and other high-liquidity assets is less than 20 million yuan; the net assets of PCCW funds are also negative and cannot be Meet the needs of daily operations and risk prevention.
Fund companies have "terminated"
With the implementation of regulatory fines and restrictions on related businesses, fund companies have also announced "terminations", suspending or terminating cooperation with relevant fund sole-selling institutions, and the reshuffle of fund agency sales has accelerated, and some institutions may even face "exit". risk.
For example, after Magpie Wealth was suspended for 6 months, since July, E Fund Fund, GF Fund, Pengyang Fund, Western Profit Fund and many other fund companies have announced to suspend cooperation with Magpie Wealth on agency sales and suspend Magpie Wealth management. Subscription, subscription, regular fixed investment and conversion of its funds.
According to Wind statistics, as of July 13, the number of Magpie Wealth consignment funds reached 1,368, ranking 53rd among all 96 independent fund sales agencies, a significant decline from the 44th at the beginning of the year.
It is foreseeable that as the fund companies terminate contracts one after another, the business scale and ranking of Magpie Fortune will decline rapidly.
In addition to the above-mentioned suspension of business, some fund sales agencies have actively or passively cancelled their fund sales licenses due to violations, poor business development, and shareholder management problems.
For example, in February this year, the Dalian Securities Regulatory Bureau imposed an administrative penalty on Taicheng Wealth Fund Sales (Dalian) Co., Ltd. ordering it to stop its fund service business, and decided to cancel Taicheng Wealth’s public securities investment fund sales business license.
Subsequently, a number of fund companies such as Quam Fund, China Securities Investment Fund and others have "terminated" the contract with Taicheng Wealth.
According to the statistics of the Securities Times reporter, as of July 13, a total of 6 independent sales institutions including Taicheng Wealth, Ancun Fund, Kedi Ruifu Fund, Tang Ding Yaohua Fund, Shengshi Tianxia Fund, and Zhixin Fund have been cancelled since the beginning of this year. Fund agency license.
Survival of the fittest in the arena
Industry accelerates reshuffle
Beijing Fuguo Datong Fund Sales Co., Ltd. believes that the accelerated clearance of fund sales agencies is a situation formed by increasingly strict supervision, continuous implementation of new regulations, and increasing compliance requirements for fund sales agencies.
In recent years, as the market acceptance of funds has become higher and higher, the Christian community has grown, and fund agency agencies have also developed rapidly. However, at the same time, the rapid development of the industry has also been accompanied by many chaos, which has led to the continuous increase in supervision. normative strength.
On October 1, 2020, the "Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Publicly Offered Securities Investment Fund Sales Institutions", known as the "strictest new regulations for fund sales", was officially implemented, which focused on optimizing the entry and exit mechanisms, such as stipulating fund sales institutions. The business license is valid for 3 years from the date of issuance, and each renewal is valid for 3 years, provided that there is no "serious lack of compliance and internal control", "no substantial public fund sales business, fund (currency) in the most recent fiscal year. Except for market funds) the average daily sales volume is less than 500 million yuan” and so on.
This makes it more difficult for fund sales agencies to "protect their brand", especially for independent sales agencies with weak backgrounds, the industry's survival of the fittest is accelerated, and the Matthew effect is further strengthened.
According to the data of the Fund Industry Association, as of the end of the first quarter of 2022, there were 20 independent fund sales agencies among the top 100 fund agency sales agencies, and their non-financial fund holding scale was about 2.74 trillion yuan. The top three Ant Fund, Tiantian Fund, The holding scale of Teng’an Fund reached 1.197 trillion yuan, 617.5 billion yuan, and 220.5 billion yuan respectively, accounting for about 74% in total, but the holding scale of Dingxin Huijin, the last place in the top 100, was only 2.9 billion yuan, which means that A large number of sales organizations have a scale below this figure, which is a worrying situation.
"For investors, the survival of the fittest in the industry means that they can experience better fund sales services, reduce the phenomenon of investors' rights and interests being damaged due to exaggerated publicity and insufficient understanding of risks, and thus improve investors' trust in the industry; for funds In terms of the industry, it can also reduce the waste of manpower and resources, so that business-focused sales agencies can expand the market, rather than trying to benefit from hyping licenses." A person from a fund exclusive sales agency said.
Wells Fargo Chase believes that the strengthening of supervision shows that the regulators are determined to clarify the chaos in the industry, thereby ensuring the healthy development of the fund sales industry, and at the same time protecting the interests of fund holders. Under the increased requirements, fund sales agencies can only do their best to strengthen internal compliance system construction, process construction and operational norms, improve the safety and compliance operation control system, and ensure and continuously strengthen the requirements for the quality and risk awareness of practitioners. Only in this way can we gain the trust of more investors and find our own way of development in the fierce market competition.”