From April 15 to 17, the 2022 Tsinghua Wudaokou global financial forum with the theme of “stability and long-term development, finance helps high-quality development” was held in Beijing. Experts and scholars from political, business and academic circles discussed major issues in the economic and financial field and made suggestions for China’s macroeconomic development and financial supervision reform.
The reporter of the securities times focused on combing the views of Zhou Xiaochuan, Xiao Gang, Zhou Yanli and Zhu Min for readers, including views on the participation of commercial banks and third-party institutions in the payment system, answers to digital RMB issuance and legal issues, as well as suggestions on public REITs, the third pillar endowment insurance and the development of zero carbon finance.
Zhou Xiaochuan: the participation of third-party institutions in the payment system should be close to high standards and should not be clever
At this forum, Zhou Xiaochuan, President of the Chinese Financial Society and former president of the people’s Bank of China, said in his speech that if third-party institutions also want to do digital currency or participate in payment systems, they should move closer to high standards to varying degrees and should not be clever. The stable currency does not claim to be a stable currency. There should be a series of condition assessment to explain whether it is a stable currency. The development of large technology companies and technology finance companies is promising. They have great prospects in the payment industry, but they should keep up with high standards.
Some people believe that the central bank’s currency is stable, while the money in the commercial bank account is commercial currency and does not have 100% stability. Zhou Xiaochuan questioned this view. He believes that the central bank currency itself is not necessarily 100% stable in the real sense, and it is not necessarily the most reasonable to take the domestic central bank currency as the coordinate.
“We should not easily shake our trust in the account funds of commercial banks.” Zhou Xiaochuan said that the stable currency does not claim to be a stable currency. There should be a series of conditions to assess whether it is a stable currency. The development of large science and technology companies and science and technology finance companies is promising. They have great prospects in the payment industry. However, they should pay attention to integrity, do not play tricks, improve their quality and keep up with high standards.
Zhou Xiaochuan believes that if commercial banks want to issue M0 or third-party institutions want to issue currency, the key lies in whether it meets high standards. For example, a high capital adequacy ratio is required; Commercial banks require deposit reserves and clearing reserves; There should be a deposit insurance mechanism to ensure payment in liquidation; Strong supervision and requirements for transparency; We should maintain good corporate governance.
digital RMB has no legal obstacles, and more printing depends on market demand
At this forum, focusing on the topic of digital RMB, Zhou Xiaochuan also put forward his personal views on whether the central bank should speed up the issuance and more issuance of digital currency, and whether digital currency should be legislated first.
Whether the central bank should speed up the issuance and issue more digital currencies. Zhou Xiaochuan believes that the amount of money printed can be decided by himself, but whether it can be circulated depends on the application. The central bank must make the issued currency truly available in the market, especially in the retail market. In fact, only when the market has demand for money can the central bank send it. From the perspective of Lbx Pharmacy Chain Joint Stock Company(603883) , we should focus on whether Lbx Pharmacy Chain Joint Stock Company(603883) is willing to put digital currency in the wallet.
Whether the digital currency should be legislated first has international standards. Zhou Xiaochuan believes that the people’s Bank of China is responsible for issuing RMB, managing the circulation of RMB, and maintaining the normal operation of the payment and clearing system. Therefore, there is no legal obstacle to digital RMB, while the third-party issuing token currency needs legislative support, which first needs to meet high standards.
In addition, when talking about the use of swift as a sanctions tool in the current international conflict, Zhou Xiaochuan said that if you avoid swift and open another channel, there may be a transition period. Swift is not irreplaceable, but replacing swift requires a lot of work in the early stage and transition period, which may affect trade. If China’s financial payment system or payment communication system slips into a cold war pattern, it will cause losses to everyone.
Xiao Gang: special regulations on public offering REITs should be formulated to encourage more high-quality assets to participate in the pilot
At this forum, Xiao Gang, member of the CPPCC National Committee and former chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, delivered a speech on the theme of “promoting the healthy development of infrastructure public offering REITs”.
Xiao Gang believes that to promote the development of public offering REITs, it is necessary to study and revise relevant laws or formulate separate regulations. REITs are securities in nature, but they are very different from stocks, bonds and asset securitization products. Therefore, it is necessary to study REITs as an independent type of securities products according to the securities law, formulate special regulations, establish the nature orientation of REITs, and build a set of institutional norms suitable for the characteristics of REITs, such as issuance, listing, trading, information disclosure and investor protection.
“At present, the adoption of ‘public fund + ABS’ mode is a feasible scheme in line with laws and regulations, which is conducive to starting the pilot as soon as possible, breaking the ice and driving the development of the market. However, the problem is that there are too many levels of product structure, complex legal relations, increased operating costs and supervision costs, and more difficult to define and coordinate the responsibilities of market subjects.” Xiao Gang said that we should improve relevant laws, make new institutional arrangements, optimize product design, simplify product structure and transaction structure, improve regulatory measures, further clarify the responsibility boundaries of market participants, reduce product creation and operation costs, and promote the sustained and healthy development and growth of REITs market.
Xiao Gang said that to promote the development of public REITs, we need to optimize the operation mechanism. Local governments and enterprises should be encouraged to take out more high-quality assets to participate in the pilot, expand the scale of REITs, further find out the bottom number of projects, and establish a classified project database to ensure that they are fully involved.
Zhou Yanli: mobilizing multiple market entities to participate in pension financial services
At this forum, Zhou Yanli, member of the Economic Committee of the CPPCC National Committee and former deputy secretary of the Party committee and vice chairman of the CIRC, delivered a speech on the theme of “building an old-age financial system suitable for aging and helping the development of China’s third pillar old-age insurance”.
Zhou Yanli pointed out that from the overall situation analysis, China’s old-age insurance is in the primary stage of development. China should mobilize multiple market players to participate in pension financial services and provide long-term pension insurance business needed by pension groups. Truly promote the formation of the third pillar of endowment insurance with the participation of multiple subjects and the supply of multiple products, so as to meet the diversified needs of endowment insurance consumers.
As for how to do the third pillar endowment insurance well, Zhou Yanli suggested that we should pay attention to strengthening the top-level design:
First, we should pay more attention to the role of the third pillar in promoting high-quality economic and social development.
Second, we should clarify the normative development orientation of the third pillar. Based on the national conditions, the third pillar should develop in coordination with the first and second pillars, closely connect in terms of population coverage, preferential policies, fund management and fund collection, jointly establish an effective old-age insurance system with Chinese characteristics, and improve the level of multi-level and multi pillar old-age insurance system.
Third, we should strengthen fiscal and tax policy support.
To further improve the accuracy of fiscal and tax policy support, we can learn from some foreign practices, including the “401k” endowment insurance model in the United States, and give a higher tax extension in a separate category. Further enrich personal pension options and various products such as deposits, financial management, insurance and funds.
Fourth, we should deepen the structural reform of pension services, adhere to “long-term investment, long-term income, value investment to create value, prudent investment and reasonable return”, and reflect the policy intention and mission of “standardizing the development of the third pillar pension insurance”.
Zhu Min: building a structural monetary policy consistent with the goal of carbon neutrality
At this forum, Zhu Min, President of the National Institute of finance of Tsinghua University and former vice president of the International Monetary Fund, said that building zero carbon finance is the starting point of building a financial development road with Chinese characteristics.
Zhu Min pointed out that finance plays a key role in the process of carbon neutralization and transformation. First, provide large-scale, long-term and high-risk zero carbon financial financing. It is estimated that energy financing alone will reach 185 trillion yuan. Second, from the perspective of stock, the stock of existing financial assets is 325 trillion yuan, because the high-carbon valuation decreases and the low-carbon valuation increases. Third, we should resolve the financial risks of transformation. At the same time, we also need to build a macro management system of zero carbon finance, from green finance to zero carbon finance. On this basis, we need to build a market ecology of zero carbon finance. The whole system and ecology should converge with international standards, and financial institutions should also achieve zero carbonization.
In Zhu Min’s view, to deal with the problems faced by building zero carbon finance, we need to start with building a macro framework. He proposed that we need to build a structural monetary policy of the Chinese model consistent with the goal of carbon neutrality. The central bank should actively promote the structural monetary policy, that is, in the traditional macro policy, we should step up the promotion of carbon neutrality structural tools and policies, correct market mistakes through non neutral price and quantitative monetary policies, correct the distortion of relative prices in the financial system, and support carbon neutrality transformation, Maximize social utility.
