SEC Money Market Fund Reform Proposals Fall Far Short, Again

As the principal regulator of U.S. money market mutual funds (MMMFs), the SEC has a duty to end the market distortions and moral hazard that repeated public rescues create. There have been two MMMF bailouts, so far. The first came at the height of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, while the second followed in the March 2020 COVID crisis. While the Treasury provided guarantees only once, the Federal Reserve offered emergency liquidity assistance both times.

These repeated government interventions encourage MMMF managers to behave in ways that make future liquidity crises more likely. Moreover, there is no credible way for the Fed to promise not to intervene should a systemic disruption again loom in short-term funding markets. The only realistic means to end the subsidies created by the implicit promise of future bailouts is to force MMMFs to be far more resilient than they are today.

Against this background, the SEC’s December 2021 MMMF reform proposals are seriously disappointing. In this post, we start with basic facts about the scale and mix of MMMFs today. We then describe the SEC’s proposals, before focusing on their key shortcomings. We hope that the public comments that the SEC receives will motivate it, at the very least, to conduct a serious quantitative assessment of introducing capital requirements for the most vulnerable MMMFs, to re-assess the scale of additional liquid assets needed for MMMF resilience in the absence of a Fed backstop, and to propose ways to enhance the effectiveness and utility of MMMF stress tests….

Stablecoin: The Regulation Debate

Last month, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) called for the introduction of a regulatory framework for “payment stablecoins”—private crypto-assets that (unlike the highly volatile Bitcoin) are pegged 1:1 to a national currency and “have the potential to be used as a widespread means of payment.” Most notably, to limit the risk of runs, the Report calls for legislation restricting stablecoin issuance to insured depositories.

In this post, we first document the rapid growth of stablecoin usage. We then highlight the features which make stablecoins subject to run risk that, in the absence of appropriate governmental controls, could destabilize the financial system. Next, we consider the three regulatory approaches that Gorton and Zhang (GZ) propose for making stablecoins resilient: the first, and the one favored by the PWG, is to limit stablecoin issuance to insured depositories; the second is to require 1:1 backing of stablecoins with sovereign securities (in the case of the United States and the U.S. dollar, these would be U.S. Treasury issues); and the third is to require 1:1 backing with central bank reserves. We conclude with a brief discussion of whether central bank digital currencies are an appropriate means to displace stablecoins.

To foreshadow our conclusions, we view the PWG proposal as the preferred alternative. However, absent near-term prospects for legislative action, we hope that the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) will consider—as GZ suggest—using its powers under the Dodd-Frank Act to designate the issuance of payments stablecoins as an activity that is “likely to become” systemically important. FSOC designation would authorize the Federal Reserve to promote uniform standards without waiting years for legislation that authorizes a new regulatory framework.

Improving resilience: banks and non-bank intermediaries

Debt causes fragility. When banks lack equity funding, even a small adverse shock can put the financial system at risk. Fire sales can undermine the supply of credit to healthy firms, precipitating a decline in economic activity. The failure of key institutions can threaten the payments system. Authorities naturally respond by increasing required levels of equity finance, ensuring that intermediaries can weather severe conditions without damaging others.

Readers of this blog know that we are strong supporters of higher capital requirements: if forced to pick a number, we might choose a leverage ratio requirement in the range of 15% of total exposure (see here), roughly twice recent levels for the largest U.S. banks. But as socially desirable as high levels of equity finance might be, the fact is that they are privately costly. As a result, rather than limit threats to the financial system, higher capital requirements for banks have the potential to shift risky activities beyond the regulatory perimeter into non-bank intermediaries (see, for example here).

Has the increase of capital requirements since the financial crisis pushed risk-taking beyond the regulated banking system? So far, the answer is no. However, in some jurisdictions, especially the United States, the framework for containing systemic risk arising from non-bank financial institutions remains inadequate….

Managing Risk and Complexity: Legal Entity Identifier

Prior to the financial crisis, even an informed observer might have naïvely believed that the CEOs of big financial firms could simply push a button to view the current exposure of their firms to any other firms in the world. Or, if less technologically advanced, they could call their chief risk officers or chief financial officers to obtain end-of-day positions.

Not even close. By the time that Lehman failed in September 2008, large financial holding companies had evolved into extremely complex structures with hundreds or thousands of subsidiaries for which the parent companies lacked consolidated information technology and risk-management systems. The multiplicity of information systems meant that different parts of the same firm employed varying names and codes to identify the same counterparty. Fixing this, merging all of the information structures and ensuring consistency, would have been an expensive proposition that managers (compensated out of current profits) had incentive to delay.

Correcting these deficiencies in the financial infrastructure is not a trivial matter. Simplifying the problem requires the creation of a unique, universal, and permanent identification system for both institutions (financial and nonfinancial) and instruments. Realizing the nature of the opportunity and the challenge, in November 2011, the G20 called for the creation of a global legal entity identifier (LEI). Importantly, everyone realized that given the massive size of the financial system that supports both domestic and cross-border activity, the solution had to be global. (For pioneering analyses, see work by the Federal Reserve and the Office of Financial Research. For up-to-date information on the LEI, see here.)....

Eclipsing LIBOR

The manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) began more than a decade ago. Employees of leading global firms submitted false reports to the British Banking Association (BBA), first to influence the value of LIBOR-linked derivatives, and later (during the financial crisis) to conceal the deterioration of their employers’ creditworthiness. U.S. and European regulators reported many of the details in 2012 when they fined Barclays, the first of a dozen financial firms that collectively paid fines exceeding $9 billion (see here). In addition to settling claims of aggrieved clients, these firms face enduring reputational damage: in some cases, management was forced out; in others, individuals received jail terms for their wrongdoing.

You might think that in light of this costly scandal, and the resulting challenges in maintaining LIBOR, market participants and regulators would have quickly replaced LIBOR with a sustainable short-term interest rate benchmark that had little risk of manipulation. You’d be wrong: the current administrator (ICE Benchmark Administration), which replaced the BBA in 2014, estimates that this guide (now called ICE LIBOR) continues to serve as the reference interest rate for “an estimated $350 trillion of outstanding contracts in maturities ranging from overnight to more than 30 years [our emphasis].” In short, LIBOR is still the world’s leading benchmark for short-term interest rates.

Against this background, U.K. Financial Conduct Authority CEO Andrew Bailey, recently called for a transition away from LIBOR before 2022 (see here). In this post, we briefly explain LIBOR’s role, why it remains an undesirable and unsustainable interest rate benchmark, and why it will be so difficult to replace (even gradually over several years) without risking disruption.

The Other Trilemma: Governing Global Finance

Courses in international economics usually introduce students to the impossible trinity, also known as the trilemma of open-economy macroeconomics: namely, that a fixed exchange rate, free cross-border capital flows, and discretionary monetary policy are incompatible. Why? Because, in the presence of free capital flows under a fixed exchange rate, private currency preferences (rather than policymakers) determine the size of the central bank balance sheet and hence the domestic interest rate. We’ve highlighted this problem several times in analyzing China’s evolving exchange rate regime (see here and here).

While many students learn that a country can only have two of the three elements of the open-economy trilemma, few learn that there also exists a financial trilemma. That is, financial stability, cross-border financial integration, and national financial policies are incompatible as well. The logic behind this second trilemma is that increases in financial integration reduce the incentives for national policymakers to act in ways that preserve financial stability globally. Put differently, as the benefits from financial stability policies spread beyond borders, the willingness to bear the costs of stabilizing the system at the national level decline. This has the important implication that, if we are to sustain increasing financial integration, then we will need greater international coordination among national financial regulators (see here, or for a much broader case for international economic governance, see Rodrik)....

An Open Letter to Congressman Patrick McHenry

Dear Vice Chair McHenry,

We find your January 31 letter to Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen both misleading and misguided.

It is in the best interest of U.S. citizens and our financial system that the Federal Reserve (and all the other U.S. regulators) continue to participate actively in international financial-standard-setting bodies. The Congress has many opportunities to hold the Fed accountable for its regulatory actions, which are very transparent. We hope that the new U.S. Administration will support the Fed’s efforts to promote a safe and efficient global financial system.

Your letter is filled with false assumptions and assertions....

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Money, Banking, and Financial Markets