China’s insurance authority has released new regulations for asset management products in the insurance sector.
On 25 March the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) released the “Insurance Asset Management Product Provisional Administrative Measures” (保险资产管理产品管理暂行办法), which will come into effect on 1 May.
According to state media the measures will “improve China’s asset-management operations supervisory system,” as well as help to “unify insurance asset management product supervisory regulations.”
The Measures stipulate that the investment scope for insurance asset management products are consistent in general with the overall investment scope for wealth management products and privately offered asset management plans.
More specifically, the Measures stipulate that “insurance fund investment” insurance asset management products must strictly abide by regulations concerning the usage of insurance funds when it comes to their investment scope.
“Non-insurance fund investmen” insurance asset management products have investment scopes that are consistent with other asset management products.
The Measures also seek to further simplify administrative procedures and delegate authority for insurance asset management product issuance as well as the scope of investment.
Combined asset management products no longer require approval, but only need to be registered, while registration of issuance must be performed with organisations approved by CBIRC.
As of the end of 2019 the insurance sector asset management product balance was 2.76 trillion yuan, including 1.27 trillion yuan in debt investment plans and 0.12 in equity investment plans, as well as 1.37 trillion yuan in combined insurance asset management products.
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