"Copy the product manual!" How to solve the problem of bank financial credit disclosure?

"To be honest, a lot of wealth management product manuals are copied and copied. Some institutions will not penetrate further downwards when disclosing the investment details of the top 10 assets, do not disclose the past performance of the investment manager, and some wealth management products do not even disclose who the investment manager is. It is important to know that the operation style of the investment manager has a certain impact on the income of wealth management products. A senior investment manager of a wealth management company said bluntly to reporters.

After the implementation of the new regulations, the banking wealth management industry has become an important player in the asset management market. However, compared with other asset management products such as mutual funds, bank wealth management products have been criticized by the market for non-standardized, insufficient and untimely information disclosure. On June 28, the State Administration of Financial Supervision disclosed a number of fines for bank wealth management companies and bank wealth management business, which brought related issues into focus. For the banking and wealth management industry, how to solve the problem of information disclosure?

It is difficult to understand the underlying assets of wealth management products

On June 28, the State Administration of Financial Supervision disclosed a number of penalty information. CMB Wealth Management, CNCBI Wealth Management, Ping An Wealth Management, CCB Wealth Management, Bank of China Wealth Management and China Merchants Bank were fined 8.5 million yuan, 7.5 million yuan, 6.5 million yuan, 4 million yuan, 2.5 million yuan and 3.5 million yuan respectively, with a total fine of 32.5 million yuan.

From the perspective of the reasons for the fines, "failure to effectively penetrate and identify the underlying assets" appeared in the fines of five institutions at the same time: CMB Wealth Management, Ping An Wealth Management, CCB Wealth Management, Bank of China Wealth Management and China Merchants Bank. "Non-standard information disclosure" appeared in the fines of CMB Wealth Management, CNCBI Wealth Management, Ping An Wealth Management, CCB Wealth Management and China Merchants Bank.

The reporter consulted Pei Hongbo, co-executive director of Beijing DHH Law Firm, who told reporters, "Some bank wealth management products involve 'multi-layer nesting' or complex investment targets, but fail to effectively disclose, making it difficult for investors to directly understand the underlying assets of wealth management products, increasing investment risks." ”

A number of industry insiders told reporters that the disclosure of the underlying assets of bank wealth management products by institutions is not comprehensive, transparent and timely, which will greatly affect the quality of information disclosure and the choice of investors.

"Institutions often only disclose the top 10 holdings of wealth management products, but the specific details of the underlying assets, such as whether the asset is a 'channel' and the details of the assets under the 'nested', may not be disclosed." Zhang Yi (pseudonym), an investment manager of a joint-stock bank wealth management company, told reporters.

Wang Yiran (pseudonym), a person in the letter disclosure position of a wealth management company of a city commercial bank, told reporters that according to relevant requirements, institutions need to disclose the types of assets and investment proportions of direct and indirect investment in wealth management products in regular reports. On the premise of satisfying regulatory requirements, institutions generally disclose the types and proportions of allocated assets before and after penetration, but will not further penetrate downward when disclosing the investment details of the top 10 assets.

The channels and standards of information disclosure are not "aligned"

"Some wealth management companies have their own apps, and the instructions of wealth management products can be read directly on the app, while some can only be read on the official website of the wealth management company, and even have to go to the wealth management page of the parent bank to view." Xiao Gao, a resident of Beijing, told reporters that the information disclosure channels of bank wealth management products are not uniform, which sometimes confuses investors.

In the course of the investigation, the reporter found that the four standards of authenticity, completeness, accuracy and timeliness of information disclosure of bank wealth management products need to be improved. At the same time, the information disclosure channels of bank wealth management products are not uniform, the quality of information disclosure is difficult to guarantee, and the disclosure content of peers is similar, and the disclosure scale is inconsistent.

In terms of information disclosure channels, investors can inquire about various wealth management products on the China Wealth Management Network, but the page display content of some products is incomplete. There are also some investors who rely heavily on bank relationship managers and are willing to understand the core information of wealth management products through them.

"In the actual business, the information disclosure channels of bank wealth management products mainly include the website of the wealth management company, the website of the parent bank, the website of the agency and the direct sales app. In the past, some wealth management companies only published product information on the website of their parent bank, but this year they also have their own website and will disclose product information. However, the construction of the website cannot be done in one step, and it is still being improved. In addition, most wealth management companies do not have their own direct selling apps. In general, the industry has improved in terms of information disclosure channels, but the scale of each has not yet been aligned. A person from a joint-stock bank wealth management company said.

In terms of the content of the letter, some industry insiders told reporters that the quality of information disclosure of wealth management products of some banks is poor, and the content of the wealth management product manuals of some institutions is very similar. In fact, the composition of the underlying assets of each bank's wealth management product is significantly different, and even if there are two wealth management products of the same type, the investment scope may not overlap.

In addition, many industry insiders mentioned that the problem of "merit-based disclosure" still exists, which is misleading to consumers. Previously, the China Banking Association issued the Code of Conduct for the Past Performance Display of Wealth Management Products, which refines the requirements for the past performance display of bank wealth management products. However, on the premise of meeting the requirements of standardization, each institution is also given a certain degree of autonomy.

Another person from a city commercial bank wealth management company told reporters for example, in accordance with the requirements of the code of conduct, taking fixed-opening wealth management products as an example, products that have been in operation for 6 years (inclusive) since their establishment must show at least 5 full fiscal years of operating yield. At the same time, according to factors such as product term and actual situation, you can choose to display the operating rate of return in multiple dimensions or one dimension such as the past 1 month, the past 3 months, the past 6 months, the past 1 year, the current investment cycle, this year, and since its establishment.

"In the past, it was impossible to see what the annualized rate of return of bank wealth management products was in the past few years, and some products showed the annualized rate of return since their establishment, some products showed the annualized rate of return in the past month, and some products showed the seven-day annualized rate of return...... After the rectification last year and the first half of this year, the situation has improved a lot, and the performance display form of bank wealth management products by various institutions has been relatively fixed, but it has not yet achieved the unification of the whole industry. Zhang Yi said.

When talking about the main problems in the information disclosure of the bank wealth management industry, Ren Tao, a distinguished researcher of the National Finance and Development Laboratory, said that the frequency, transparency and adequacy of the industry's information disclosure of wealth management products need to be improved; The standards and channels for information disclosure have not yet been truly unified. "After years of efforts, the industry's problems in information disclosure channels and performance display have improved, but the problems in income valuation adjustment, capital investment, fundraising information, disclosure frequency and other aspects are still relatively prominent." Ren Tao said.

It is understood that the State Administration of Financial Supervision has recently issued the Administrative Measures for Information Disclosure of Asset Management Products (Draft for Comments) to some trust companies, bank wealth management companies and insurance asset management companies. The era of "strong credit disclosure" in the asset management industry is accelerating.

Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at the financial market department of Everbright Bank, believes that by strengthening the standardized information disclosure of asset management institutions, it will help promote asset management institutions to better perform investor suitability management; For investors, standardized and timely disclosure of wealth management product information will help reduce decision-making costs and enhance investment confidence; In the medium and long term, it will help promote the benign interaction between investment and financing and the standardized and healthy development of the asset management industry.

Reviewer: Ye Siqi Editor: Yu Hongbo Proofreader: Zhang Jing Producer: Li Ruoyu Signed: Peng Yong