Mutual funds make limited borrowing from RBI’s credit lines

Schemes closed by Franklin Templeton Mutual Funds:

Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund’s has decided to wind up their 6 debt schemes from 23rd April, 2020. The 6 schemes closed by Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund’s was worth ₹26,000 crore. The closure of these 6 schemes significantly reduced liquidity in the Indian bond market. Money of many retail investors and High Net worth Individuals (HNI’s) is blocked as there will be no option of liquidity available in their portfolios. Executives from Franklin Templeton Mutual Funds noted lock down outbreak of COVID-19 and the lock down imposed in state compelled them to take this decision. To control the uncertainty in the financial market, RBI launched new provisions to tackle this problem.

Reserve Bank of India launched special liquidity facility:

In late April 2020, Reserve Bank of India launched a special liquidity facility for mutual funds (SLF-MF). This special facility states a provision of total corpus of ₹50,000 crore is available and Mutual funds can borrow money through banks. The functioning will be, corpus of ₹50,000 crore is available and banks are allowed to borrow money from Reserve Bank of India for maximum 90 days. They can lend money to mutual fund firms by keeping collateral of their portfolio. Once the time span of 90 days elapses, the lender needs to pack back the money and take their collaterals. Further, banks will return money to the Central bank. Reserve Bank of India noted this facility can be availed by a bank only for lending back to Mutual funds.

Limited borrowing from RBI’s special liquidity facility:

The special liquidity facility provided by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to mutual funds did not observe massive utilization. The utilization was only ₹2,430 crore from the total ₹50,000 crore window. Media reports noted, rather than lending money from bank, mutual fund’s preferred selling securities to bank and to their other parties. As mutual funds preferred to sell securities to the banks and other counter parties, this shown a spike in sales of debt papers of some NBFC’s.

Redemption of debt funds:

Media reports noted the special liquidity facility provided by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to mutual funds has controlled the redemption of debt funds. In March 2020, various debt funds shown massive outflow. Due to this pandemic, a huge amount of redemption in debt funds is observed. In March 2020, there was a massive outflow in open-ended Debt funds of ₹1,94,915 crore. However, in the month of April 2020 the outflow continued, but inflow of ₹43,432 crore was executed.

In April 2020, it was observed that redemption in credit risk funds was ₹19,238.98 crore. Low duration fund also observed redemption of total ₹9,841.07 crore in the month of April. Further redemptions in various schemes like Ultra Short Duration fund, Money market fund, Short Duration fund amounted to ₹3,419.32 crore, ₹1,210.35 crore, ₹2,309.05 crore respectively.

Ease in NBFC’s sector:

The national movement of Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan / Self-Reliant India initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to support India’s all small and local businesses. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced economic booster package of ₹20 crore under government’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan / Self-Reliant India to fight against COVID-19. The economic booster package of ₹20 crore includes new provision to aid NBFC sector. Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), Microfinance institutions (MFIs) and Housing finance companies (HFCs) will get liquidity support of ₹30,000 crore under liquidity scheme. Under this scheme, banks can invest in investment-grade debt papers issued by NBFCs through both primary and secondary market transactions. The investment up to ₹30,000 crore will be entirely guaranteed by the Government of India.

Additionally, NBFCs, MFIs, and HFCs will even get the assistance of ₹45,000 crore under partial guarantee scheme. This assistance provided by government is to provide liquidity support to the institutions whose credit rating is low. This will be applicable for all the unrated papers and the papers with ratings of AA and below issued by NBFCs, MFIs, and HFCs. This will enhance the liquidity support of all the institutions under NBFCs, MFIs, and HFCs. Under this scheme, the first 20% loss will be borne by the Indian government i.e. public sector banks resulting in a liquidity of ₹45,000 crore.

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