新加坡應加強NDF市場監管
Singapore generally dislikes drawing attention to itself when it comes to financial markets.
在金融市場方面，新加坡通常不願意成爲外界關注的焦點。Having discreetly built itself up as an Asian financial hub, Singapore has now become one of the world’s largest centres for wealth management and comModities trading. But recently the Lion City has been drawing some unwelcome attention in the foreign exchange markets, where it is ranked fourth-largest in the world by trading volume.
新加坡不聲不響地把自己建設成亞洲金融中心，如今已成爲全球最大的財富管理與大宗商品交易中心之一。但是最近，這座“獅城”卻在外匯市場方面招來些許不快的目光。新加坡外匯市場的交易額位居全球第四。Last month two former UBS traders sued the Switzerland-based bank alleging they were wrongfully dismissed and accused by the bank of gross misconduct. In two lawsuits filed in Singapore, they claim they were fired to cover up any role the bank had in allegedly manipulating the pricing of foreign exchange derivatives.
上個月，兩名前瑞銀(UBS)交易員對這家總部位於瑞士的銀行提起訴訟。二人聲稱，瑞銀指責他們存在重大不當行爲並因此開除他們是不公正的。二人在新加坡提起兩場訴訟，稱瑞銀開除他們是爲了掩蓋該行在所謂操縱外匯衍生品定價方面所扮演的角色。
One, Prashant Mirpuri, was employed as an “emerging market southeast Asia non-deliverable forward trader”, according to court filings. The other, Mukesh Kumar Chhaganlal, was a former co-head of macro-trading, emerging markets Asia.
法庭文件顯示，其中一人名叫普拉尚特??米爾普里(Prashant Mirpuri)，曾任瑞銀“東南亞新興市場無本金交割遠期(NDF)交易員”；另一人名叫穆凱什??庫馬爾??查甘拉爾(Mukesh Kumar Chhaganlal)，曾任瑞銀亞洲新興市場宏觀交易聯席主管。Behind these opaque job titles lies an equally opaque business done in Singapore: dealing in a type of foreign exchange contract known as a non-deliverable forward. NDFs trace their roots in Asia to the region’s financial crisis of the mid-1990s, after which many countries slapped currency controls in place.
在這種晦澀的職銜背後，隱藏着一種在新加坡展開的同樣晦澀的業務：交易一種稱之爲NDF的外匯合約。NDF在亞洲的起源可追溯到20世紀90年代中期的亞洲金融危機。那次危機過後，很多國家立刻採取了外匯管制措施。NDFs are an obscure corner of the over-the-counter derivatives markets where two parties agree to buy or sell a foreign currency – in the Singapore case, currencies of southeast Asian countries Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam – for a fixed price at some future date. Such contracts are used by companies to protect themselves against fluctuations in non-convertible currencies. Banks in Singapore run trading desks where they are also traded speculatively, usually over the phone. Mr Mirpuri was in charge of one such desk at UBS.
NDF是場外衍生品市場中不起眼的一個角落：交易雙方達成協議，以設定的價格在未來某一天買賣某種外國貨幣——就新加坡的情況而言，買賣的是馬來西亞、印尼、菲律賓以及越南等東南亞國家的貨幣。企業用此類合約來保護自己，以免受非自由兌換貨幣匯率波動的影響。新加坡的銀行也設立NDF交易部門，投機性地交易這些合約——通常是通過電話交易。米爾普里就負責瑞銀的一個這樣的部門。Because it is not possible under an NDF to take delivery of the local currency when it comes to settling the contract on expiry, both counterparties take their cue from a “fixing rate” set daily by a panel of banks in Singapore, in Indonesian rupiah, Malaysian ringgit, Vietnamese dong and so forth. That is used to calculate a dollar profit or loss at contract expiry.
NDF的性質決定了在合約期滿結算時不可能以當地貨幣交割，因此，交易雙方會參照每日由若干新加坡銀行設定的印度盧比、馬來西亞林吉特以及越南盾等貨幣的“定盤匯率”，以此在合約期滿時計算美元收益或損失。Quite how this “shadow” fixing system has emerged in Singapore, alongside the official rates set by southeast Asian central banks, is a bit of a mystery. Bankers say it was because traders did not historically trust the onshore fixing. It is easy to forget the depth of anti-market feeling in Malaysia during the Asian crisis.
東南亞各國央行會設定本幣的官方匯率，那麼這個“影子”定盤系統到底是如何在新加坡冒出來的——這個問題讓人有點搞不懂。銀行家表示，之所以會出現這個“影子”定盤系統，是因爲交易員向來不信任在岸定盤匯率。人們很容易忘記亞洲金融危機期間馬來西亞的反市場情緒有多麼嚴重。But the fact is Singapore is the biggest NDF market in Asia outside Japan. This has become awkward for Singapore, due to the UBS lawsuits and the scandal over manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.
事實上，新加坡是亞洲(不含日本）最大的NDF市場。然而，由於發生了瑞銀訴訟案以及倫敦銀行間同業拆借利率(Libor)醜聞，這一地位讓新加坡感到有些尷尬。As part of its own probes into Libor and Sibor, a local equivalent, the Monetary Authority of Singapore in September directed banks to review their processes for setting rates for NDFs. Banks should “report immediately any irregularities” and take “appropriate disciplinary action against staff involved”.
作爲調查Libor及新加坡銀行間同業拆借利率(Sibor)行動的一部分，新加坡金融管理局(MAS)去年9月指示各家銀行檢討它們設定NDF匯率的流程。根據該局的要求，銀行“若發現任何違規行爲應立即舉報”，並“對涉案員工採取適當的紀律處分”。UBS declines to comment on the traders’ lawsuits. It says it is “co-operating fully with the authorities” on the Singapore regulator’s review. In his lawsuit, Mr Chhaganlal claims that after the Libor scandal emerged he raised “concerns over the way in which reference rates were being set in the Singapore market”. He observed “increasingly unrealistic” US dollar-rupiah rates.
瑞銀拒絕就上述兩名交易員的訴訟置評。該行表示，它在新加坡監管機構的審查問題上正在“全面配合當局”。查甘拉爾在訴訟中稱，在Libor醜聞出現以後，他開始“擔心新加坡市場設定參考匯率的方式”。他觀察到，美元兌盧比匯率“越來越不切實際”。At least one central bank in southeast Asia seems uneasy. Bank Negara, Malaysia’s central bank, this month reminded domestic banks to use a locally set reference rate for dollar-ringgit transactions, implicitly steering them away from the rate set in Singapore.
至少有一家東南亞央行顯得有些坐立不安。馬來西亞央行(Bank Negara)本月提醒國內銀行使用一項本國設定的參考匯率從事美元-林吉特交易，暗中引導國內銀行擺脫新加坡設定的匯率。None of this looks good. It was the opaqueness of largely unregulated OTC markets, such as credit default swaps, that fuelled the 2008 global financial crisis.
上述種種跡象似乎都不太有利。正是因爲信用違約互換(CDS)等基本上不受監管的場外市場缺乏透明度，才引發了2008年的全球經融危機。The Singapore regulator is expected to wrap up its review of the NDF market soon. It is also working on new rules for OTC derivatives as part of Singapore’s compliance with a global drive to tighten up on this area.
預計新加坡監管機構將很快結束對NDF市場的審查。新加坡還在針對場外衍生品交易制定新規，以順應全球加強對該領域監管的努力。The US Dodd-Frank Act pushes for NDFs to move away from the clubby, phone-brokered market and on to more transparent electronic trading platforms. Singapore and other Asian regulators are less keen.
美國的《多德-弗蘭克法案》(Dodd-Frank Act)力求推動NDF離開通過電話撮合交易的較封閉市場，轉而登陸更加透明的電子交易平臺。新加坡與其他亞洲國家的監管機構這一努力不是那麼熱衷。They do not want to choke off nascent markets, for understandable competitive reasons. But leaving the NDF market unregulated should not be an option if Singapore wants to avoid attracting any more unwanted attention.
出於可以理解的競爭因素考慮，這些國家不想扼殺新興的市場。但是，如果新加坡不想引來更多不必要的關注，它就不應選擇對NDF市場不加監管。Jeremy Grant is the Financial Times’s Asia regional corporate correspondent
傑里米??格蘭特(Jeremy Grant)是英國《金融時報》亞洲區企業記者
