New NRB Directive regarding limiting BFI's short term investment
in Shares
1. 1. In the beginning, the directive created lots of confusion about this
1%. Now it is clear that the regulator has kept intact the 30% limit of
the BFI's core capital for investment in share markets including in
"held for trading" (includes direct share purchase for short term
trading), "held for maturity" (such as bonds and Mutual funds) and
"available for sales" (buying shares for long term such as promoter shares that could be sold when the BFI has cash crunch). This 1% limit is for share purchase for short term within that 30%
2.
The directive discourages BFIs being major share
market investors as their primary role is banking. Rather than providing loans,
they seem interested in purchasing shares. This process must be discouraged. In
this background, the directive sounds good for long term. However, it fall down
from heaven as a surprise, in this context, it is suspicious.
3.
May be the central bank employees (doubling as
share market investors) finished their stocks of hydro-power and insurance
sector shares and are ready to grab shares from these sectors. After a year, by
allowing opportunity to grab as many shares as possible to its
investor-employees, the central bank may change its policy in this or that name
and could provide its employees doubling as investors a window to collect
unimaginable returns. If this happens, it would be a major policy level
corruption.
4.
The impact of NRB directive should be in limited
scale, if it was introduced in a transparent way giving enough time to be
prepared for such directive. But, when the regulator dropped as a bomb shell,
the market reacted in a nervous way, giving players to terrorize plenty of
weapons to grab shares by interpreting/misinterpreting the directives. May or
may not be so, in a falling market, introducing policy in hest could invite
"conspiracy theory."
5.
Nepal has become a paradise for anarchists and
ultras – be they in politics or economy; governance or judiciary; regulators or
autonomous bodies and an as well as many others. The same practice was
continued by NRB.
In conclusion, I found the policy
not harmful for the growth of the capital market on long term, but the way it
has been introduced brings several questions. And, if I conclude that NRB is in
hand-in-glove with the bad guys, who make the market turbulent, certainly, I do
not feel that I have overstated, nor many among the readers would feel so, I
hope.
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