Unified standards and concerted regulation should be applied to wealth management products sold by non-banking institutions, otherwise risks might match those generated by banks and cause a shock this year, a senior banking regulator warned on Tuesday.
"Not only banks, but insurance and securities companies are also able to sell wealth management products, which raises great challenges for financial regulation," said Yan Qingmin, assistant chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
Wealth management products are similar to time deposits, but the interest rates can be set freely by financial institutions, and many of the assets and liabilities stay off the balance sheets, adding to concerns over fast-expanding shadow banking activities in recent years.
These products usually require a minimum investment of 50,000 yuan ($7,900). The capital from buyers often goes into bonds, loans and company projects.
The commission also plans to further strengthen regulation over banks' issuance of wealth management products this year to prevent risks from spreading, Yan said.
"The focus this year should be to prevent banks from operating products with different risk levels in the same capital pool, and make sure they use separate accounts for products with fixed and non-fixed income," said Wang Yanyou, director of the commission's Business Innovation Regulatory and Collaboration Department.
The amount of outstanding wealth management products was at about 7.4 trillion yuan in January, accounting for about 5 percent of the banking business, and the products issued last year generated an average yield of 4.1 percent, according to Wang.
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