On 25 September 2020, China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), People’s Bank of China (PBOC), and State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) released the new rules “Measures for the Administration of Domestic Securities and Futures Investment by Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors and RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors” (the “Measures”), and “Provisions on Issues Concerning the Implementation of the Measures” (the “Provisions”). The new rules will take effect from 1 November 2020. 

The new rules further liberalized the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (QFII) and RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (RQFII) schemes, by relaxing qualification requirements, simplifying application process, expanding investment scope and facilitating investment and operations for QFIIs and RQFIIs.

PASLA welcomes these reforms as a significant step forward in accessing and opening up the domestic market for offshore participants.  PASLA will continue to work, in conjunction with ASIFMA, with the relevant regulators to obtain further details and clarify salient points. 

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced that they will extend the temporary ban on short selling on all stocks listed on the KOSPI, KOSDAQ and KONEX market.

The FSC had initially issued a temporary six-month ban on short selling on all stock markets on 16 March 2020 that was supposed to expire on 15 September 2020. However, the regulators have decided to extend this ban for another six months until 15 March 2021.

Regulated, transparent and covered short selling is an important characteristic of developed equity markets globally.  It helps to create liquidity, reduce costs for market participants, manage risk in investors’ portfolios and encourage good corporate governance.  Over the long term, PASLA believes that markets in which participants can express different views will be more resilient, more attractive to global institutional investors and better positioned to support economic growth and prosperity. 

PASLA is delighted to announce the launch of the new PASLA LinkedIn page, which will allow us to better connect with our members and stakeholders.

The Executive Committee believe that a more accessible presence on the world’s leading professional network will enhance our efforts to represent the securities lending industry, communicate our views and shape the discussion about securities lending in Asia Pacific.

Using LinkedIn should also complement our other forms of external engagement, such as dialogue with regulators and exchanges, public speaking and engaging with media.

As you will see, our new LinkedIn profile gives us an opportunity to explain PASLA’s purpose to a wider audience, comment on topics that matter to the industry – such as the relationship between ESG and securities lending – and share content that will interest market participants. In time, we will also close down the existing private PASLA LinkedIn group as this will no longer be required now that we have a public profile.

We hope that you will follow PASLA on LinkedIn and share our posts with your own connections on the network. Please do let us have any feedback.

Thank you for your continued support.