China’s top insurance regulator has announced major changes to its regulatory model for the investment management capabilities of domestic insurance agencies.
The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) issued the “Notice Concerning Matters in Relation to the Optimisation of the Regulation of the Investment Management Capability of Insurance Agencies” (关于优化保险机构投资管理能力监管有关事项的通知) on 10 October.
A CBIRC official said that the Notice further “deepens decentralised regulatory reforms,” by cancelling registration-based regulation of the investment management capabilities of Chinese insurance agencies.
CBIRC said it will instead transition to a new regulatory model combining “self-assessment” by insurance agencies of their own investment management capabilities, in combination with information disclosures and ongoing regulation by authorities.
Insurance agencies are required to publicly disclose their investment management capabilities, including the specific qualifications and experience of their specialist personnel, and the names and document numbers of their relevant systems, as well as the overall frameworks, divisions of labour and rules for their procedural mechanisms,
The Notice details disclosure benchmarks for the investment management capabilities of insurance agencies across seven areas, including i) credit risk management capability ii) share investment management capability iii) equity investment management capability iv) immovable asset investment management capability v) derivative operation management capability vi) equity investment plan product management capability and vii) equity investment plan product management capability.
A CBIRC official said that information disclosures for insurance agencies are divide into three categories i). initial disclosures, ii) semi-annual disclosures and iii) disclosure of major events.
