Chinese regulators unveiled its timeline for ownership cap removals across various types of companies in the financial sector in yet another market-opening move in the midst of a grueling trade war.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) recently announced that limits on foreign ownership in various mainland financial firms would be scrapped.
Ownership caps on futures companies, mutual fund companies and securities companies would be removed in 2020 on January 1, April 1 and December 1, respectively.
Rapid Market Opening
The announcement closely follows a regulatory move in April 2018 to remove the limit and allow foreign brokerage houses to obtain a majority stake in their mainland joint ventures, previously capped at 49 percent ownership. The new rules would allow outright ownership, a significant policy shift from a tightly controlled economy.
UBS, J.P. Morgan and Nomura were amongst those that received regulatory approval to set up majority-owned joint ventures since last December. But such global financial giants, alongside the handful of other securities joint ventures partly owned by foreign investors account for a mere fraction of the mainland Chinese brokerage market, still dominated by around 160 local players.
