The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China announced on July 15 that it will suspend account gold and account silver business opening transactions.
The announcement shows that ICBC will suspend the account gold and account silver business opening transactions from 8:00 on August 15, 2022, Beijing time. The pending open orders that have been set by customers and have not been filled will automatically become invalid, and the customers who hold the positions will close their positions. Transactions are not affected.
It is understood that since this year, at least six banks have tightened their personal precious metals business.
At least 6 banks tighten personal precious metals business during the year
Since the beginning of this year, many commercial banks, including ICBC, have tightened their personal precious metal trading business to varying degrees.
On July 4, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China announced that from 9:00 on August 15, 2022, Beijing time, it will suspend the opening transactions of the Shanghai Gold Exchange's personal precious metal deferred settlement contracts and the purchase of personal gold spot real contracts. Incoming transactions, the closing transactions of the agency personal deferred settlement contracts and the selling transactions of the agency individual gold spot real contracts will not be affected.
At the same time of suspending the above-mentioned business, ICBC has also raised some gold-related precious metal business transaction margins - since the closing and liquidation on July 8, ICBC Au(T+D), mAu(T+D), Au(T+ N1), Au(T+N2), NYAuTN06 and NYAuTN12d contract standard transaction margin ratio will be raised from 34% to 42%, Ag(T+D) contract standard transaction margin ratio will be raised from 38% to 46%, and the differential margin will be synchronized Adjustment.
Prior to this, ICBC has raised the contract margin ratio six times.
On June 2, China Construction Bank announced that starting from 15:30 on June 17, 2022 (Friday), Beijing time, it will suspend the new opening transactions of deferred contracts for the personal precious metal trading business of the Shanghai Gold Exchange, and the closing transactions will not be accepted. Affected; the purchase transaction of spot contract varieties is suspended, and the sell transaction is not affected.
On May 12, Hua Xia Bank announced that it will make adjustments to the precious metal trading business for agency personal customers, including the suspension of all channels for agency individual customers after the market closes on May 12, the delayed opening of precious metal spot positions on the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the actual purchase of spot transactions. , increase the contract margin ratio, cancel the contract without holding a position and no trading customer, etc.
On January 4, the Bank of Communications stated in a statement that from January 17, it will suspend the opening transactions of all the trading varieties of the book-entry precious metals business of the Bank of Communications.
In addition, China Everbright Bank and Industrial Bank have also issued relevant business adjustment announcements, and the adjustment measures are similar to those of the above-mentioned banks.
In fact, the bank's precious metals business has been gradually tightening since November 2020.
According to incomplete statistics, more than 20 banks have suspended applications for new account opening for precious metal-related businesses.
Precious metal prices fluctuate wildly
Since the second quarter, precious metal prices have fluctuated and declined.
As of press time, the international spot gold price was US$1,707.44 per ounce, and the international spot silver price was US$18.6 per ounce, down 17.52% and 30.98% from the high price on March 8.
Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at the Financial Market Department of China Everbright Bank, believes that the tightening of personal precious metal trading business by financial institutions is a signal to the market that the current relevant market risks are too high.
Other industry experts also said that commercial banks' tightening of precious metals and other businesses is mainly to reduce the potential risks of trading activities and better protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors.
The latest announcement of ICBC reminds again: "Considering the uncertainty of the international bulk commodity market, for customers with outstanding positions, it is recommended to carefully control the size of their positions and pay attention to preventing and controlling their own risks."
Previously, a number of banks also mentioned in their announcements that factors such as the continued large fluctuations in precious metal prices, significantly increased market risks, and increased investment and transaction risks in personal precious metal trading businesses.
Personal derivatives financial business further tightened
In December last year, the central bank, together with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, jointly drafted the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Standardized Development of Derivatives Business (Draft for Comment)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions"), which clearly stipulated that all participating entities should Deferred delivery contracts traded on specific trading venues with the characteristics of future delivery, and book-entry precious metals, bulk commodities, foreign exchange and other account-based products issued by financial institutions that do not involve actual delivery of the underlying objects are managed with reference to this Opinion.
At the same time, it also stipulates that banking and insurance institutions shall not directly conduct derivatives transactions with individual customers over the counter.
This means that business including account precious metals and agency precious metals on the Shanghai Gold Exchange has been officially included in the scope of derivatives supervision.
Zhang Wen, a researcher at CITIC Futures Co., Ltd., believes that the contraction of the bank's personal precious metal derivatives business is actually the specific implementation of the "Guiding Opinions".
This will help further standardize the domestic derivatives market and help individual investors avoid risks.
(Broker China)