Friday, March 28, 2014

Capital Market Intermediaries

1.    Introduction

Various intermediaries plays important roles in a financial transactions those are happening every day. We will firstly discuss intermediaries with respect to equity only - because equity is considered to be the simplest asset class in capital market world. In a security's life cycle, in each phase from issuing an instrument in Primary Market to buying that instrument in Secondary Market. Though in Secondary Market, for a transaction (combination of buy and sell order) actual security movement occurs between two parties - buyer and seller, in background lot of intermediaries exist and facilitate a smooth movement.
Let us consider two persons Mr. Bagchi and Mr. Sharma who consider them to be good friend of each other and Mr. Bagchi sold his House to Mr. Sharma. So, there exist two possible movements
  1. House Movement: From Mr. Bagchi -> Mr. Sharma
  2. Money Movement: From Mr. Sharma -> Mr. Bagchi
The above mentioned movements are associated with a contract between Mr. Bagchi and Mr. Sharma. In Capital Markets terminology this can be termed as a Trade happened between Mr. Bagchi and Mr. Sharma. Therefore, in a generic way it can be said that, as part of the trade or contract, two parties entered into an agreement where both the parties agreed to pay corresponding security at a pre specified date. The pre-specified date in the agreement is usually termed as Value Date in the contract.

As a most desirable situation, on the Value Date, the Hose Movement and Money Movement will happen. But if due to some reason say Mr. Bagchi is not agreeing to handover the possession of his house to Mr. Sharma. So, it can be inferred from this case that guarantee plays more important role than trust. This incident necessitate a third party to enter into the situation which can play a role of guarantor. In this regard, one or more third party may exists in a simple to most complex financial transaction. In the Capital Market world, these third parties are usually termed as Intermediaries.
In the above case, including the guarantor there may be more intermediaries and those may be categorized as one of the followings:
  • Bank – Responsible for managing cash movements and maintenance.
  • Guarantor – Role is already mentioned in the above paragraphs
  • Agent or Broker – In a case where buying and selling parties are not known to each other instead they entered into an agreement through an agent or broker
  • Exchange – In case, there exists a central market where more than one broker is dealing among themselves to facilitate transactions of various properties etc.
Intermediaries do exist in every place whether it is a capital market or a wholesale market etc. It should be noted that one single entity can play role of one or more intermediaries simultaneously.

2.    Capital Market Intermediaries

The securities market essentially has three categories of participants, namely, the issuers of securities, investors in securities and the intermediaries. While the corporates and government raise resources from the securities market to meet their obligations, it is households that invest their savings in the securities market.

Capital Market Intermediaries are any entity those act as a middleman between two parties in a financial transaction.

Capital Market Intermediaries are also termed as Financial Institutions. Capital markets intermediaries are licensed and regulated under the regulation act of a country. Capital Market Intermediaries can be categorized based on their roles and responsibilities. Financial intermediaries offer a number of benefits to the average consumer including safety, liquidity and economies of scale. Following are some of the intermediaries in a capital market. IT should be noted that there may exist more entity in this regard.

  1. Broker-Dealer or Agent: Act as one or many roles of that of Trading Participant, Settlement Participant, Clearing Participant
  2. Bank: Provides safe-keeping services for cash
  3. Custodian and Depository: Provides safe-keeping services for all kinds of instruments - usually provides services in Dematerialized form
  4. Exchange: Provides a platform facilitate trading services - online, offline, over-the-telephone etc.
  5. Central Counter Party (CCP): Plays the role of counter party of both the parties in a transaction and thus eliminates the risk of non payment of cash or non delivery of security from any of the parties. Usually novate a trade into two trades. So, if there exists one CCP in the above mentioned example in Indtroduction section, original agreement will be broken into two agreement as one between Mr. Bagchi and CCP and the other between CCP and Mr. Sharma
  6. Clearing Participant: Takes the responsibility of transferring the cash and security to the relevant party.
  7. Registrar: Maintains a record of who is holding what. This usually provides service to the security issuer. Issuer, at the time of Corporate Action announcement and entitlement, refers to the relevant Registrar.
  8. Regulatory Body: Though act as one of the intermediaries, usually regulates and controls the operations of other intermediaries. This is usually a government body.
  9. Some more examples are Mutual Fund, Pension Fund etc.
Following table shows regulating authorities of some of the countries:

Sl. No.
Country
Regulating Authority
1
India
  • Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
  • Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA)
  • Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
2
Singapore
  • MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore)
3
United States
  • Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC)
  • Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
  • Federal Reserve System ("Fed")
  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
  • Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
  • Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)  and etc.
4
Australia
  • Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)
  • Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)
5
Hong Kong
  • Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)
  • Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC)


3.    Importance of an Intermediary

Question may be asked whether it is at all necessary to transact through an intermediary. 

Yes, It is advisable to conduct transactions through an intermediary. For example, you need to
transact through a trading member of a stock exchange if you intend to buy or sell any security on 
stock exchanges. You need to maintain an account with a depository if you intend to hold securities in
demat form. You need to deposit money with a banker to an issue if you are subscribing to public
issues. You get guidance if you are transacting through an intermediary. 

In case of India, chose a SEBI registered intermediary, as he is accountable for its activities. The list 
of registered intermediaries is available with exchanges, industry associations etc.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Fixed Income - Basics

1. Fixed Income - Basic Concept

Fixed Income is interchangeably used as Debt or Bond. This is another asset class in securities market. By the term it can be understood that this type of security. In this type of securities there are two parties involved and those are as follows:
  • Issuer: Who is borrowing money from public or people or another financial institution (s).
  • Money Lender: Who lends money to the borrower (in this case issuer).
In this type of instrument, Issuer and Money Lender enters into an agreement (Bond) where Issuer agrees to return the principal with some interest to the Money Lender. Though this type of instrument is considered to be a very safe instrument, generally there is no guarantee that the Issuer will return the principal and interest to the Money Lender. In contrast to the Equity instrument, this type of instrument doesn't represent any ownership to the issuing company. This type of instrument generally have an maturity date - by when issuer agrees to return the borrowed principal along with charged interest. The liability (Debt) of the issuing company is only up to the maturity date.

There are various important attributes of a Fixed Income securities. Those will be discussed later in this document. Depending on the various parameters, Fixed Income securities can be further classified in other sub categories, those are listed in the later part of this document.

2. Characteristics of Fixed Income Securities

This section will describe the characteristics of a typical Fixed Income securities. In this context it is important to know the important parameters or attributes of this type of instruments. Following are the important parameters of this type of instruments:
  • Issuer: The issuing company that issued the particular Fixed Income security.
  • Maturity Date: It is the day when the issuing company is obliged to pay the maturity amount (the principal or what is mentioned in the fixed income certificate). If things go well, after this day the issuing company's obligation becomes zero (0).
  • Interest (or Coupon) Rate: In capital market terminology, the interest is also called coupon. Interest Rate is the rate at which the issuing company agrees to pay the interest (or coupon). This may be a fixed one or floating. Details of this will be discussed in later phase.
  • Interest (or Coupon) Payment Frequency: The frequency at which the issuing company agrees to pay the coupon to the money lender or buyer of the fixed income securities. Examples are Annually, Semi-Annually, Quarterly.
  • Principal Amount: The value written on the fixed income certificate. This is also called Face Value of a fixed income security. In reality this is the amount the issuer agrees to repay the principal amount to the bond holder or the money lender at the time of maturity.
  • Issuing Currency: The currency at which the fixed income security has been issued to public. Examples are INR, USD, GBP, JPY etc.
  • Interest (Coupon) Payment Currency: The currency at which coupons will be paid to the bond holder. Examples are INR, USD, GBP, JPY etc. Issuing Currency may differ from Interest (Coupon) Payment Currency.
One interesting thing to be noted that the name of a bond itself conveys the key features of a debt instrument. E.g., a GS CG2024 10.50% bond refers to a Central Government (CG) bond maturing in the year 2024 and paying a coupon at a rate of 10.50%.

3. Coupon and Discount Instrument

Depending on the nature of a fixed income security that can be termed as a Coupon or Discount type instrument. The basic difference between a Coupon and a Discount instrument is that for the first type of instrument periodic interest is paid to the bond holder while for the later type of instrument no periodic interest is paid to the bond holder but the instrument is issued at a discounted price. A Coupon type of instrument is issued at principal amount and issuer agrees to repay the principal at the time of maturity. Whereas for a Discount type of of instrument, the instrument is issued at a discounted price which is less than the Principal Amount and issuer agrees to repay the Principal Amount at the time of maturity.

More on this section will be discussed during corporate action management section.

4. Examples of Fixed Income Securities

Depending on the business nature of fixed income securities these can be categorized as the following types:

  • Corporate Bond
  • Government Bond
  • US Treasury
  • Municipal Bond
  • Collateral Mortgage Obligation
  • Collateral Mortgage Obligation Group
  • Agency Bond
  • Asset Swap Bond
  • Mortgage Backed Security and etc.
The details of these instruments will be described in later phase.

© Sumit Bhowmick