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Special Liquidity Facility for Mutual Funds

April 27, 2020/0 Comments/in Capital Markets, Financial Services, RBI /by Vinod Kothari Consultants

By Anita Baid (finserv@vinodkothari.com)

[Posted on April 27, 2020 and updated on April 30, 2020]

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been vigilantly taking necessary measures and steps to mitigate the economic impact of Covid-19 and preserve financial stability. The capital market of our country has also been exposed to the disruption. The liquidity strains on mutual funds (MFs) has intensified for the high-risk debt MF segment due to redemption or closure of some debt MFs. This was witnessed when Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund[1] announced the winding up of six yield-oriented, managed credit funds in India, effective April 23, citing severe market dislocation and illiquidity caused by the coronavirus. Sensing the need of the hour and in order to ease the liquidity pressures on MFs, RBI has announced a special liquidity facility for Mutual Funds (SLF-MF)[2] of Rs. 50,000 crore.

Under the SLF-MF, the RBI shall conduct repo operations of 90 days tenor at the fixed repo rate. The SLF-MF is on-tap and open-ended, wherein banks shall submit their bids to avail funding on any day from Monday to Friday (excluding holidays) between 9 AM and 12.00 Noon. The scheme shall be open from April 27, 2020 till May 11, 2020 or up to utilization of the allocated amount, whichever is earlier. An LAF Repo issue will be created every day for the amount remaining under the scheme after deducting the cumulative amount availed up to the previous day from the sanctioned amount of Rs. 50,000 crores. The bidding process, settlement and reversal of SLF-MF repo would be similar to the existing system being followed in case of LAF/MSF. Further, the RBI will further review the timeline and amount, depending upon market conditions.

As per the press release, the RBI will provide funds to banks at lower rates and banks can avail funds for exclusively meeting the liquidity requirements of mutual funds in the following ways:

extending loans, and
undertaking outright purchase of and/or repos against the collateral of investment grade corporate bonds, commercial papers (CPs), debentures and certificates of Deposit (CDs) held by MFs.

Accordingly, the funds availed by banks from the RBI at the repo window will be used to extend loans to MFs, buy outright investment grade corporate bonds or CPs or CDs from them or extend the funds against collateral through a repo.

The RBI has further vide its notification dated April 30, 2020, extended the regulatory benefits under the SLF-MF scheme to all banks, irrespective of whether they avail funding from the RBI or deploy their own resources under the scheme. Banks meeting the liquidity requirements of MFs by any of the aforesaid methods, shall be eligible to claim all the regulatory benefits available under SLF-MF scheme without the need to avail back to back funding from the RBI under the SLF-MF.

It is important to note that in terms of regulation 44(2) of the SEBI (Mutual Funds) Regulations, 1996[3], a MF shall not borrow except to meet temporary liquidity needs of the MFs for the purpose of repurchase, redemption of units or payment of interest or dividend to the unit holders and, further, the mutual fund shall not borrow more than 20% of the net asset of the scheme and for a duration not exceeding six months.

As per the aforesaid SEBI regulations, MFs should normally meet their repurchase/redemption commitments from their own resources and resort to borrowing only to meet temporary liquidity needs. Therefore, under the SLF-MF scheme as well banks will have to be judicious in granting loans and advances to MFs only to meet their temporary liquidity needs for the purpose of repurchase/redemption of units within the ceiling of 20% of the net asset of the scheme and for a period not exceeding 6 months. While banks will decide the tenor of lending to /repo with MFs, the minimum tenor of repo with RBI will be for a period of three months.

Similar to the incentives given to the banks in case of LTRO schemes, the following shall be available for banks extending funding under the SLF-MF-

the liquidity support availed under the SLF-MF would be eligible to be classified as held to maturity (HTM) even in excess of 25% of total investment permitted
Exposures under this facility will not be reckoned under the Large Exposure Framework (LEF)
The face value of securities acquired under the SLF-MF and kept in the HTM category will not be reckoned for computation of adjusted non-food bank credit (ANBC) for the purpose of determining priority sector targets/sub-targets
Support extended to MFs under the SLF-MF shall be exempted from banks’ capital market exposure limits.

The RBI’s move is much needed to ease the liquidity stress on the MF industry. However, as has been seen in the TLRTO 2.0 auctions, banks are taking a cautious approach before using this facility provided by RBI. However, it is expected that this will ensure easing of liquidity and also boost investor sentiment.

[1] With assets worth more than Rs 86,000 crore as of the end of March, Franklin Templeton is the ninth largest mutual fund in the country

[2] https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=49728

[3] Last updated on March 6, 2020- https://www.sebi.gov.in/legal/regulations/mar-2020/securities-and-exchange-board-of-india-mutual-funds-regulations-1996-last-amended-on-march-06-2020-_41350.html

Loan products for tough times

April 24, 2020/0 Comments/in Financial Services /by Vinod Kothari Consultants

-Vinod Kothari (vinod@vinodkothari.com)

Economic recoveries in the past have always happened by increasing the supply of credit for productive activities. This is a lesson that one may learn from a history of past recessions and crises, and the efforts made by policymakers towards recovery. [See Appendix]

The above proposition becomes more emphatic where the disruption is not merely economic – it is widespread and has affected common life, as well as working of firms and entities. There will be major effort, expense and investment required for restarting economic activity. Does moratorium merely help? Moratorium possibly helps avoiding defaults and insolvencies, but does not help in giving the push to economic activity which is badly needed. Entities will need infusion of additional finance at this stage.

The usual way governments and policy-makers do this is by releasing liquidity in the banking system. However, there are situations where the banking system fails to be an efficient transmission device for release of credit, for reasons such as stress of bad loans in the banking system, lack of efficient decision-making, etc.

In such situations, governments and central banks may have to do direct intervention in the market. Governments and central banks don’t do lending – however, they create institutions which promote lending by either banks or quasi-banks. This may be done in two ways – one, by infusion of money directly, and two, by ways of sovereign guarantee, so as to do credit risk transfer to the sovereign. The former method has the limit of availability of resources – governments have budgetary limitations, and increased public debt may turn counter-productive in the long-run. However, credit risk transfer can be an excellent device. Credit risk transfer also seems to be creating, synthetically, the same exposure as in case of direct lending by the sovereign; however, there are major differences. First, the sovereign does not have to go for immediate borrowings. Second and more important, the perceived risk transfer, where credit risk is shifted to the sovereign, may not actually hit in terms of credit losses, if the recovery efforts by way of the credit infusion actually bear fruit.

The write-up below suggests a product that may be supported by the sovereign in form of partial credit risk guarantee.

Genesis of the loan product

For the sake of convenience, let us call this product a “wrap loan”. Wrap-around mortgage loans is a practice prevalent in the US mortgage market, but our “wrap loan” is different. It is a form of top-up loan, which does not disturb the existing loan terms or EMI, and simply wraps the existing loan into a larger loan amount.

Let us assume the following example of, say, a loan against a truck or a similar asset:

Original Loan amount	1000000
Rate of interest	12%
Tenure	60	Months
EMIs	₹ 22,244.45
Number of months the loan has already run	24	Months
Number of remaining months of original loan term	36	Months
Principal outstanding (POS) on the date of wrap loan	₹ 6,69,724.82

For the sake of convenience, we have not considered any moratorium on the loan[1]. The customer has been more or less regular in making payments. As on date, he has paid 24 EMIs, and is left with 36. Now, to counter the impact of the disruption, the lender considers an additional loan of Rs 50000/-. Surely, for assessing the size of the wrapper loan, the lender will have to consider several things – the LTV ratio based on the increased exposure and the present depreciated value of the asset, the financial needs of the borrowers to restart his business, etc.

With the additional infusion of Rs 50000, the outstanding exposure now becomes Rs 719725/-. We assume that the lender targets a slightly higher interest for the wrapper part of the loan of Rs 50000, say 14%. The justification for the higher interest can be that this component is unsecured. However, we do not want the existing EMI, viz., Rs 22244/- to be changed. That is important, because if the EMIs were to go up, there will be increasing pressure on the revenues of the borrower, and the whole purpose of the wrap loan will be frustrated.

Therefore, we now work the increased loan tenure, keeping the EMIs the same, for recovering the increased principal exposure. The revised position is as follows:

POS on the date of wrap loan	₹ 6,69,724.82
Additional loan amount	50000
Interest on the additional loan	14%
Blended interest rate	12.139%
Revised loan tenure	39.39	months
total maturity in months (rounded up)	40	months
Number of whole months	39	months
Fractional payment for the last month	₹ 8,664.67

Note that the blended rate is the weighted average, with interest at the originally-agreed rate of 12% on the existing POS, and 14% on the additional amount of lending. The revised tenure comes to 39.39 months, or 40 months. There will be full payment for 39 months, and a fractional payment in the last month.

Thus, by continuing his payment obligation for 3-4 more months, the borrower can get Rs. 50000/- cash, which he can use to restart his business operations.

The multiplier impact that this additional infusion of cash may have in his business may be substantial.

Partial Sovereign Guarantee for the Wrapper Loan

Now, we bring the key element of the structure. The lender, say a bank or NBFC, will generally be reluctant to take the additional exposure of Rs 50000, though on a performing loan. However, this may be encourage by the sovereign by giving a guarantee for the add-on loan.

The guarantee may come with minimal actual risk exposure to the sovereign, if the structure is devised as follows:

The sovereign’s portion of the total loan exposure, Rs 719725, is only Rs 50000, which is less than 10%. A safe limit of 10% of the size of the existing exposure may be kept, so that lenders do not aggressively push top-up loans.
Now, the sovereign’s portion, which is only Rs 50000/- (and in any case, limited to 10%), may either be a pari-passu share in the total loan, or may be structured as a senior share.
If it is a pari-passu share, the question of the liability for losses actually coming to the sovereign will arise at the same time as the lender. However, if the share of the sovereign is a senior share, then the sovereign will get to share losses only if the recoveries from the loan are less than Rs 50000.

The whole structure may be made more practical by moving from a single loan to a pool of loans. The sovereign guarantee may be extended to a pool of similar loans, with a prescription of a minimum number, maximum concentration per loan, and other diversity parameters. The moment we move from a single loan to a pool of loans, the sharing of losses between the sovereign and the originator will now be on a pool-wide basis. Even if the originator takes a first loss share of, say, 10%, and the sovereign’s share comes thereafter, the chances of the guarantee hitting the sovereign will be very remote.

And of course, the sovereign may also charge a reasonable guarantee fee for the mezzanine guarantee.

Since the wrapper loan is guaranteed by the sovereign, the lender may hope to get risk weight appropriate for a sovereign risk. Additional incentives may be given to make this lending more efficient.

Appendix

Economic recovery from a crisis and the role of increased credit supply: Some global experiences

Measures by FRB during following the Global Financial Crisis:

‘The first set of tools, which are closely tied to the central bank’s traditional role as the lender of last resort, involve the provision of short-term liquidity to banks and other depository institutions and other financial institutions. A second set of tools involved the provision of liquidity directly to borrowers and investors in key credit markets. As a third set of instruments, the Federal Reserve expanded its traditional tool of open market operations to support the functioning of credit markets, put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative through the purchase of longer-term securities for the Federal Reserve’s portfolio.’[2]

Liquidity shocks may cause reverse disruption in the financial chain:

‘During a financial crisis, such “liquidity shock chains” can operate in reverse. Firms that face tightening financing constraints as a result of bank credit contraction may withdraw credit from their customers. Thus, they pass the liquidity shock up the supply chain; that is, their customers might cut the credit to their customers, and so on…..Thus, the supply chains might propagate the liquidity shocks and exacerbate the impact of the financial crisis.’[3]

Measures taken during Global Financial Crisis – US Fed publication – From Credit Crunches to Financial Crises:

Therefore, many of the policy remedies proposed to alleviate credit crunches were, in fact, used during the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis to mitigate potential credit availability problems. These remedies included capital infusions into troubled banks, the provision of liquidity facilities by the Federal Reserve, and, in the initial stress test, a primary focus on raising bank capital rather than allowing banks to shrink assets to maintain, or regain, required capital ratios.[4]

Observations of Banca Italia on the 2008 Crisis

‘First, the effect of credit supply on value added is not detectable in the years before the great recession, indicating that credit supply is more relevant during an economic downturn. Second, the reduction in credit supply also explains the decline in employment even if the estimated effect is lower than that on value added. As a result, we can also detect a significant impact on labor productivity, while there is no effect on exports and on firm demographics. Third, the role of credit supply does vary across firms’ size, economic sectors, degree of financial dependence and, consequently, across geographical areas. Specifically, the impact is concentrated among small firms and among those operating in the manufacturing and service sectors. The impact is also stronger in the provinces that depend more heavily on external finance’[5]

[1] In fact, the wrap loan could have been an effective alternative to the moratorium

[2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_crisisresponse.htm

[3] http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETTRADE/Resources/TradeFinancech01.pdf

[4] https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/Workingpapers/PDF/economic/cpp1505.pdf

[5] https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2016/2016-1057/en_tema_1057.pdf

Our other content relating to COVID-19 disruption may be referred here: http://vinodkothari.com/covid-19-incorporated-responses/

Our FAQs on moratorium may be referred here: http://vinodkothari.com/2020/03/moratorium-on-loans-due-to-covid-19-disruption/

Would the doses of TLTRO really nurse the financial sector?

April 16, 2020/0 Comments/in NBFCs, RBI /by Vinod Kothari Consultants

-Kanakprabha Jethani | Executive

Vinod Kothari Consultants P. Ltd

(kanak@vinodkothari.com)

Background

In response to the liquidity crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through a Press Release Dated April 03, 2020[1] announced its third Targeted Long Term Repo Operation (TLTRO). This issue is a part of a plan of the RBI to inject funds of Rs. 1 lakh crores in the Indian economy. Under the said plan, two tranches of LTROs of Rs. 25 thousand crores each have already been undertaken in the months of February[2] and March[3] respectively. This move is expected to restore liquidity in the financial market, that too at relatively cheaper rates.

The following write-up intends to provide an understanding of what TLTRO is, how it is supposed to enhance liquidity and provide relief, who can derive benefits out of it and what will be its impact. This article further views TLTROs from NBFCs’ glasses to see if they, being financial institutions, which more outreach than banks, avail benefit from this operation.

Meaning

LTRO is basically a tool to provide funds to banks. The funds can be obtained for a tenure ranging from 1 year to 3 years, at an interest rate equal to one day repo. Government securities with matching or higher tenure, would serve as a collateral. Usually, the interest rate of one day repo is lower than that of other short term loans. Thus, banks can avail cheaper finance from the RBI.

Banks will have to invest the amount borrowed under TLTROs in fresh acquisition of securities from primary or secondary market (Specified Securities) and the same shall not be used with respect to existing investments of the bank.

In the current LTRO, the RBI has directed that atleast 50% of the funds availed by the bank have to be invested in investment grade corporate bonds, commercial papers and debentures in the secondary market and not more than 50% in the primary market.

Why were the existing measures not enough?

Ever since the IL&FS crisis broke the liquidity supply chain in the economy, the RBI has been consistently putting efforts to bring back the liquidity in the financial system. For almost a year, the RBI kept cutting the repo rate, hoping the cut in repo rates increases banks’ lending power and at the same time reduces the interest rate charged by them from the customers. Despite huge cuts in repo rates, the desired results were not visible because the cut in repo rates enhanced banks’ coincide power by a nominal amount only.

Another reason for failure of repo rate cuts, as a strategy to reduce lending rates, was that repo rate is one of the factors determining the lending rate. However, it is not all. Reduction in repo rates did affect the lending rate, but the effect was overpowered by other factors (such as increased cost of funds from third party sources) and thus, the banks’ lending rates did not reduce actually.

Further, various facilities have been introduced by the RBI to enhance liquidity in the system through Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) which includes repo agreements, reverse repo agreements, Marginal Standing Facility (MSF), term repos etc.

Under LAF, banks can either avail funds (through a repurchase agreement, overnight or term repos) or extend loans to the RBI (through reverse repo agreements). Other than providing funds in the time of need, it also allows the banks to safe-keep excess funds with the RBI for short term and earn interest on the same.
Under MSF (which is a new window under LAF), banks are allowed to draw overnight funds from the RBI against collateral in the form of government securities. The rate is usually 100 bps above the repo rate. The amount of borrowing is limited to 1% of Net demand and Term Liabilities (NDTL).
In case of term repos, funds can be availed for 1 to 13 days, at a variable rate, which is usually higher than the repo rate. Further, the funds that can be withdrawn under such facility shall be limited to 0.75% of NDTL of the bank.

Although these measures do introduce liquidity to the financial system, they do not provide banks with ‘durable liquidity’ to provide a seamless asset-liability match, based on maturity. On the other hand, having funds in hand for a year to 3 years definitely is a measure to make the maturity based assets and liabilities agree. Thus, giving banks the confidence to lend further to the market.

Bits and pieces to be taken care of

The TLTRO transactions shall be undertaken in line with the operating guidelines issued by the RBI through a circular on Long Term Repo Operations (LTROs)[4]. A few points to be taken care of are as follows:

The RBI conducts auctions (through e-Kuber platform) for extending such facility. Banks have to bid for obtaining funds from such facility. The minimum bid is to be of Rs. 1 crore and the allotment shall be in multiples of Rs. 1 crore.
The investment in Specified Securities is to be mandatorily made within 30 days of availment of funds. In case the bank fails to deploy funds availed under TLTRO within 30 days, an incremental interest of repo rate plus 200 basis points shall be chargeable, in addition to normal interest, for the period the funds remain un-deployed.
The banks will have to maintain the amount of specified securities in its Hold-to-Maturity (HTM) portfolio till the maturity of TLTRO i.e. such securities cannot be sold by banks until the term of TLTRO expires. Further, in case bank intends to hold the Specified Securities after the term of TLTRO expires, the same shall be allowed to be held in banks’ HTM portfolio.

Impact

The TLTRO operation of the RBI is expected to bring about a relief to the financial sector. The LTRO auctions conducted recently received bids amounting to several times the auction amount. Thus, a clear case of extreme demand for funds by banks can be seen. Although, the recent auctions are yet to reap their fruits, the major benefits that may arise from this operation are as follows:

The liquidity in the banking system will get increased. Resultantly, the banks’ lending power would increase. Thus, injecting liquidity into the entire economy.
Since, the marginal cost of funds of the banks will be based on one-day repo transactions’ rate, the same shall be lower as compared to other funding options of similar maturity. A reduced cost of funds for the banks will compel banks to lend at lower rates. Thus, making the short-term lending cheaper.

The picture from NBFCs’ glasses

Barely out of the IL&FS storm, the shadow bankers had not even adjusted their sails and were hit by another crisis caused by the covid-19 disruption. While the RBI is introducing measures for these lenders to cope with the crisis such as moratorium on repayment instalments[5], stay on asset reclassification based on the moratorium provided etc. The liquidity concerns of NBFCs remain untouched by these measures.

Word has it, the TLTRO is expected to restore liquidity in the financial system. Only banks can bid under LTRO auctions and avail funds from the RBI. This being said, let us look at how an NBFC would fetch liquidity from this.

Banks would use the funds availed under TLTRO transactions to invest in Specified Securities of various entities. Let us assume a bank avails funds of Rs. 1 crore under LTRO. Out of the funds availed, the bank decides to invest 50% in Specified Securities of companies in non-financial sector and 50% in entities in financial sector. Assuming that the entire 50% portion is invested in Specified Securities of 20 NBFCs equally. Each NBFC gets 2.5% of the funding availed by the Bank.

In the primary market

For the purchase of Specified Securities through primary market, the question of prime importance is whether it is feasible for an NBFC to come up with a fresh issue in the current scenario of lockdown. It is not feasible for an NBFC to plan an issue, obtain a credit rating, and get done with all other formalities within a period of 30 days. Thus, the option of fresh issue would generally be ruled out. Primary issues in pipeline may get banks as their investors. However, existence of such issues in pipeline are very low at present.

If an NBFC decides to go for private placement and gets it done within a span of say around a week, it can succeed in getting fresh liquidity for its operations. However, looking at the bigger picture, the restriction of investing only in investment grade securities bars the banks from investing in NBFCs which have lower rating i.e. usually the smaller NBFCs (more in number though). So the benefit of the scheme gets limited to a small number of NBFCs only. Thus, the motive of making liquidity reach the masses gets squashed.

In the secondary market

Above was just a hypothetical example to demonstrate that only a fraction of funds given out under LTRO would actually be used to bring back liquidity to the stagnant NBFC sector. It is important to note here that the liquidity is being brought back through purchase of securities from the secondary market, which does not result in introduction of any additional money to the NBFCs for their operations.

The liquidity enhancement in secondary market would also be limited to Specified Securities of investment grade. Thus, as already discussed, only the bigger size NBFCs would get the benefit of liquidity restoration.

Conclusion

The TLTRO is a measure introduced by the RBI to enhance liquidity in the system. Although it provides banks with liquidity, the restrictions on the use of availed funds bar the banks to further pass on the liquidity benefit. As for NBFCs, the benefit is limited to making the securities of the NBFCs liquid and the introduction of fresh liquidity to the NBFC is likely to be minimal.

Further, the benefit is also likely to be limited to bigger NBFCs, destroying the motive of making liquidity reach to the masses. A few enhancements to the existing LTRO scheme, such as directing the banks to ensure that the investment is not concentrated in a few destinations or prescribing concentration norms might result in expanding liquidity reach to some extent and would create a chain of supply of funds that would reach the masses through the outreach of such financial institutions.

News Update:

The RBI Governor in his statement on April 17, 2020[6], addressed the problem of narrow outreach of liquidity injected through TLTRO and announced that the upcoming TLTRO (TLTRO 2.0) would come with a specification that the proceeds are to be invested in investment grade bonds, commercial paper, and non-convertible debentures of NBFCs only, with at least 50 per cent of the total amount availed going to small and mid-sized NBFCs and MFIs. This is likely to ensure that a major portion of the investments go to the small and mid-sized NBFCs, thus expanding the liquidity outreach.

[1] https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=49628

[2] https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=49360

[3] https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=49583

[4] https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=49360

[5] Our detailed FAQs on moratorium on loans due to Covid-19 disruption may be referred here: http://vinodkothari.com/2020/03/moratorium-on-loans-due-to-covid-19-disruption/

[6] https://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Content/PDFs/GOVERNORSTATEMENTF22E618703AE48A4B2F6EC4A8003F88D.PDF

Our write-up on stay on asset classification due to covid-19 may be referred here: http://vinodkothari.com/2020/04/the-great-lockdown-standstill-on-asset-classification/

Our other write-ups on NBFCs may be referred here: http://vinodkothari.com/nbfcs/