Report of the President’s Working Group on
Financial Markets
Overview of Recent Events and Potential Reform
Options for Money Market Funds
December 2020
2
Table of Contents
I. Overview ................................................................................................................................. 3
II. Background ............................................................................................................................ 5
A. Money Market Funds — Structure, Asset Types, and Investor Characteristics ......... 5
B. 2010 and 2014 Reforms ..................................................................................................... 6
C. State of the Money Market Fund Industry Following the 2008 Financial Crisis ........ 8
III. Events in March 2020 .......................................................................................................... 11
A. Stresses in Short-Term Funding Markets ..................................................................... 11
B. Stresses on Prime and Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds and Other Money-Market
Investment Vehicles ................................................................................................................. 14
C. Taxpayer-Supported Central Bank Intervention ......................................................... 17
IV. Potential Policy Measures to Increase the Resilience of Prime and Tax-Exempt Money
Market Funds .............................................................................................................................. 18
A. Removal of Tie between MMF Liquidity and Fee and Gate Thresholds ................... 22
B. Reform of Conditions for Imposing Redemption Gates ............................................... 23
C. Minimum Balance at Risk ............................................................................................... 24
D. Money Market Fund Liquidity Management Changes ................................................ 26
E. Countercyclical Weekly Liquid Asset Requirements ................................................... 27
F. Floating NAVs for All Prime and Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds ...................... 28
G. Swing Pricing Requirement ............................................................................................ 29
H. Capital Buffer Requirements .......................................................................................... 30
I. Require Liquidity Exchange Bank Membership .......................................................... 31
J. New Requirements Governing Sponsor Support .......................................................... 33
3
I. Overview
In March 2020, short-term funding markets came under sharp stress amid growing
economic concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic and an overall flight to liquidity and
quality among investors. Instruments underlying these markets include short-term U.S. Treasury
securities, short-term agency securities, short-term municipal securities, commercial paper
(“CP”), and negotiable certificates of deposit issued by domestic and foreign banks (“NCDs”).
Money market funds (“MMFs”) are significant participants in these markets, facilitating
investment by a broad range of individuals and institutions in the relevant short-term
instruments. Because these short-term instruments tend to have relatively stable values and
MMFs offer daily redemptions, investors in MMFs often expect to receive immediate liquidity
with limited price volatility. However, in times of stress, these expectations may not match
market conditions, causing investors to seek to liquidate their positions in MMFs. These investor
actions, which are motivated by both the expectation-market condition mismatch and the
structural vulnerabilities of MMFs, can amplify market stress more generally.
1
The economic and public policy considerations raised by this dynamic among investors,
MMFs, and short-term funding markets are multi-faceted and significant. The orderly
functioning of short-term funding markets is essential to the performance of broader financial
markets and our economy more generally. It is the role of financial regulators to identify and
address market activities that have the potential to impair that orderly functioning. Crafters of
public policy and financial regulation also must recognize that the broad availability of short-
term funding is critical to short-term funding markets and, for many decades, prime and tax-
exempt MMFs have been an important source of demand in these markets although their market
share has decreased and assets shifted toward government MMFs in the past decade. In addition,
the participation of retail investors in MMFs raises considerations of fairness and consumer
confidence, particularly in times of unanticipated stress, that can affect regulatory and public
policy responses.
These dynamics and policy considerations were brought into stark relief in March 2020.
While government MMFs saw significant inflows during this time, the prime and tax-exempt
MMF sectors faced significant outflows and increasingly illiquid markets for the funds’ assets.
As a result, prime and tax-exempt MMFs experienced, and began to contribute to, general stress
in short-term funding markets in March 2020. For example, as pressures on prime and tax-
exempt MMFs worsened, two MMF sponsors intervened to provide support to their funds. It did
1
For a more detailed discussion of the structure and significance of short-term funding markets and the
effects of the COVID-19 shock, as well as the effects of monetary and fiscal measures, see SEC staff
report, “U.S. Credit Markets Interconnectedness and the Effects of COVID-19 Economic Shock,” (October
2020) (“SEC Staff Interconnectedness Report”), available at https://www.sec.gov/files/US-Credit-
Markets_COVID-19_Report.pdf; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Financial Stability
Report,” (November 2020) at pp.13-14, available at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/financial-stability-report-20201109.pdf.
4
not appear that these funds had idiosyncratic holdings or were otherwise distinct from similar
funds and, accordingly, it was reasonable to conclude that other MMFs could need similar
support in the near term. These events occurred despite multiple reform efforts over the past
decade to make MMFs more resilient to credit and liquidity stresses and, as a result, less
susceptible to redemption-driven runs. When the Federal Reserve quickly took action in mid-
March by establishing, with Treasury approval, the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity
Facility (“MMLF”) and other facilities to support short-term funding markets generally and
MMFs specifically, prime and tax-exempt MMF outflows subsided and short-term funding
market conditions improved.
2
Prime and tax-exempt MMFs have been supported by official sector intervention twice
over the past twelve years. In September 2008, there was a run on certain types of MMFs after
the failure of Lehman Brothers caused a large prime MMF that held Lehman Brothers short-term
instruments to sustain losses and “break the buck.”
3
During that time, prime MMFs experienced
significant redemptions that contributed to dislocations in short-term funding markets, while
government MMFs experienced net inflows. Ultimately, the run on prime MMFs abated after
announcements of a Treasury guarantee program for MMFs and a Federal Reserve facility
designed to provide liquidity to MMFs.
4
Subsequently, the Securities and Exchange Commission
(“SEC”) adopted reforms (in 2010 and 2014) that were designed to address the structural
vulnerabilities that became apparent in 2008.
Because prime and tax-exempt MMFs again have shown structural vulnerabilities that
can create or transmit stress in short-term funding markets, it is incumbent upon financial
regulators to examine the events of March 2020 closely, and in particular the role, operation, and
regulatory framework for these MMFs, with a view toward potential improvements. In addition,
2
The MMLF makes loans available to eligible financial institutions secured by high-quality assets the
financial institution purchased from MMFs. The MMLF also received $10 billion in credit protection from
the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund. Other relevant Federal Reserve facilities include, among
others: (1) the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (“CPFF”), which provides a liquidity backstop to U.S.
issuers of commercial paper; and (2) the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (“PDCF”), which provides funding
to primary dealers in exchange for a broad range of collateral.
3
A number of other funds that suffered losses in 2008 avoided breaking the buck because they received
sponsor support. See Money Market Fund Reform; Amendments to Form PF, Investment Company Act
Release No. 31166 (July 23, 2014) [79 FR 47736 (Aug. 14, 2014)] (“SEC 2014 Reforms”) at Section
II.B.4, available at https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2014/33-9616.pdf; See also Steffanie A. Brady,
Kenechukwu E. Anadu, and Nathaniel R. Cooper, “The Stability of Prime Money Market Mutual Funds:
Sponsor Support from 2007 to 2011,” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Supervisory Research and Analysis
Working Papers (2012), available at https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/risk-and-policy-
analysis/2012/the-stability-of-prime-money-market-mutual-funds-sponsor-support-from-2007-to-
2011.aspx. For a description of the term “break the buck,” see Section II.A, below.
4
For a more detailed discussion of the MMF-related events in 2008, see Report of the President’s Working
Group on Financial Markets, “Money Market Fund Reform Options,” (October 2010) (“2010 PWG
Report”), available at https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-
releases/Documents/10.21%20PWG%20Report%20Final.pdf.
5
absent regulatory reform or other action that alters market expectations, these prior official sector
interventions may have the consequence of solidifying the perception among investors, fund
sponsors, and other market participants that similar support will be provided in future periods of
stress.
With that history and context, this report by the President’s Working Group on Financial
Markets (“PWG”) begins the important process of review and assessment.
5
After providing
background on MMFs and prior reforms, the report discusses events in certain short-term
funding markets in March 2020, focusing on MMFs. The report then discusses various measures
that policy makers could consider to improve the resilience of MMFs and broader short-term
funding markets.
6
This report is meant to facilitate discussion. The PWG is not endorsing any
given measure at this time.
II. Background
A. Money Market Funds — Structure, Asset Types, and Investor Characteristics
MMFs are a type of mutual fund registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940
(the “Act”) and regulated under rule 2a-7 of the Act. MMFs offer a combination of limited
principal volatility, liquidity, and payment of short-term market returns, which make them a
popular cash management vehicle for both retail and institutional investors. These funds also
serve as an important source of short-term financing for businesses and financial institutions, as
well as federal, state, and local governments.
Overall, MMFs tend to invest in short-term, high-quality debt instruments that typically
are held to maturity and fluctuate very little in value under normal market conditions. However,
from fund to fund, MMFs vary significantly. They hold different types of investments, serve
investors of different types (i.e., institutional and retail), and pursue different investment
objectives. For example, tax-exempt MMFs hold short-term state and local government and
municipal securities, while government MMFs almost exclusively hold obligations of the U.S.
government, including obligations of the U.S. Treasury and federal agencies and
instrumentalities, as well as repurchase agreements collateralized fully by government securities.
Traditionally, prime MMFs invest mostly in private debt instruments, including CP and NCDs.
With regard to investor characteristics, there are three types of MMFs: (1) retail MMFs, which
are limited to retail investors; (2) publicly-offered institutional MMFs, which are held primarily
by institutional investors and offered broadly to the public; and (3) non-publicly-offered
5
The PWG is chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury and includes the Chair of the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System, the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Chair of the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
6
Given jurisdictional differences, this report is not intended to cover events in other jurisdictions or to
suggest a uniform international approach to policy changes.
6
institutional MMFs.
7
Variations in portfolio holdings also correspond with investor-specific
factors such as taxing jurisdictions and, to some extent, risk/return preferences.
Another significant difference among different types of MMFs is how they price the
purchase and redemption of their shares. All government MMFs, as well as retail prime and
retail tax-exempt MMFs, are permitted to price their shares at a stable net asset value (“NAV”)
per share (typically $1.00) without regard to small variations in the value of the assets in their
portfolios. These MMFs must periodically compare their stable NAV per share to the market-
based value per share of their portfolios (or “market-based price”). If the deviation between these
two values exceeds one-half of one percent (50 basis points), the fund’s board must consider
what action, if any, to take, including whether to adjust the fund’s share price. If the repricing is
below the fund’s $1.00 share price, the event is commonly called “breaking the buck.” In light of
the importance investors place on a stable $1.00 share price, such an action can lead to a loss of
confidence in the fund and, if it is expected to extend beyond one fund, could lead to a loss of
confidence in all similar funds. As discussed below, following the SEC’s 2014 reforms,
institutional prime and institutional tax-exempt MMFs are required to price their shares using a
floating NAV, which reflects the market value of the fund’s investments and any changes in that
value, thus reducing the risk of an adverse signaling effect from “breaking the buck.”
As investors commonly use MMFs for principal preservation and as a cash management
tool, many MMF investors may have a low tolerance for losses and liquidity limitations.
However, MMFs offer shareholder redemptions on at least a daily basis (and in some cases at a
stable NAV), even though a potentially significant portion of portfolio assets may not be
converted into cash in that timeframe without a reduction in value.
When the MMF does have to
sell portfolio assets at a discount, the fund’s remaining shareholders generally bear those losses.
These factors can lead to greater redemptions if investors believe they will be better off by
redeeming earlier than other investors—a so-called “first mover” advantage—when there is a
perception that the fund may suffer a loss in value or liquidity. Historically, amid periods of
stress for MMFs, institutional investors, who may have large holdings and the resources to
monitor risks carefully, have redeemed shares more rapidly and extensively than retail investors.
B. 2010 and 2014 Reforms
The SEC has implemented a number of reforms over the past decade aimed at making
MMFs more resilient to credit and liquidity stresses and addressing structural vulnerabilities in
MMFs that were evident in the 2008 financial crisis, particularly the substantial reforms the SEC
adopted in 2010 and 2014.
8
The 2010 reforms focused on, among other things, enhancing
7
For example, funds not offered to the public include “central” funds that asset managers use for internal
cash management.
8
See Money Market Fund Reform, Investment Company Act Release No. 29132 (Feb. 23, 2010) [75 FR
10060 (Mar. 4, 2010)] (“SEC 2010 Reforms”), available at https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2010/ic-
29132.pdf; SEC 2014 Reforms.
7
transparency and reducing credit, liquidity, and interest rate risks of fund portfolios to make
MMFs more resilient and, in the case of stable NAV funds, less likely to break the buck. For
example, the amendments introduced new liquidity requirements: At the time an MMF acquires
an asset, it must hold at least 10 percent of its total assets in daily liquid assets (“DLA”) and at
least 30 percent of its total assets in weekly liquid assets (“WLA”).
9
These requirements are
designed to work in combination and ensure that a MMF has the legal right to receive enough
cash within one or five business days to satisfy redemption requests. To address credit risks, the
amendments added a new 120-day limit on funds’ portfolio weighted average life to limit
exposure to credit spreads, as well as a reduction in the limit on funds’ portfolio weighted
average maturity from 90 days to 60 days to limit interest rate risk.
10
The 2010 reforms increased
transparency by requiring MMFs to publicly disclose portfolio holdings each month. In addition,
the amendments addressed other important issues such as stress testing, orderly fund liquidation,
and repurchase agreements.
The SEC’s subsequent 2014 reforms focused on the structural vulnerabilities that make
MMFs susceptible to runs and provided tools intended to slow runs should they occur.
11
These
reforms included a floating NAV requirement for all prime and tax-exempt MMFs sold to
institutional investors as a means of mitigating first mover advantages for investors who redeem
from these funds when the value of their assets decline. Under the floating NAV requirement,
these MMFs must sell and redeem their shares at prices based on the current market-based value
of the assets in their underlying portfolios rounded to the fourth decimal place (e.g., $1.0000).
9
All MMFs are subject to these DLA and WLA standards, except tax-exempt MMFs are not subject to DLA
standards due to the nature of the markets for tax-exempt securities and the limited supply of securities with
daily demand features. If a MMF’s portfolio does not meet the minimum DLA or WLA standards, it is not
in violation of rule 2a-7. However, it may not acquire any assets other than DLA or WLA until it meets
these minimum standards.
Daily liquid assets are: cash; direct obligations of the U.S. government; certain securities that will mature
(or be payable through a demand feature) within one business day; or amounts unconditionally due within
one business day from pending portfolio security sales. See rule 2a-7(a)(8).
Weekly liquid assets are: cash; direct obligations of the U.S. government; agency discount notes with
remaining maturities of 60 days or less; certain securities that will mature (or be payable through a demand
feature) within five business days; or amounts unconditionally due within five business days from pending
security sales. See rule 2a-7(a)(28).
10
See SEC staff report, “Response to Questions Posed by Commissioners Aguilar, Paredes, and Gallagher,”
(November 2012) at pp. 18-30, available at http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2012/money-market-funds-
memo-2012.pdf.
11
Prior to the 2014 reforms, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (“FSOC”) proposed recommendations
regarding MMF reforms to address structural vulnerabilities of MMFs that the SEC’s 2010 reforms did not
address. These proposed recommendations, which FSOC made pursuant to Section 120 of the Dodd-Frank
Act, included alternatives on a floating NAV, a risk-based NAV buffer of 3 percent to provide explicit loss-
absorption capacity, and a minimum balance at risk. See Financial Stability Oversight Council, “Proposed
Recommendations Regarding Money Market Mutual Fund Reform,” (November 2012) (“FSOC Proposed
Recommendations”), available at
https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/fsoc/Documents/Proposed%20Recommendations%20Regarding%20M
oney%20Market%20Mutual%20Fund%20Reform%20-%20November%2013,%202012.pdf.
8
Prior to the 2014 reforms, rule 2a-7 permitted these funds to maintain a stable NAV per share
like all other MMFs.
In addition, to provide tools to slow an investor run should it occur, the 2014 reforms
provided new fee and gate tools for all prime and tax-exempt MMFs, including retail funds.
12
Under the fee and gate provisions, boards of these MMFs are permitted to impose liquidity
(redemption) fees of up to 2 percent or to temporarily suspend redemptions if the fund’s WLA
falls below the 30 percent minimum required. In addition, funds must impose a 1 percent
liquidity fee if WLA falls below 10 percent of total assets, unless the fund’s board determines
that imposing the fee is not in the best interests of the fund. Liquidity fees provide investors
continued access to cash redemptions but may reduce the incentive to redeem. Gates, on the
other hand, stop redemptions altogether for up to ten business days but may cause investors to
seek a first mover advantage and redeem in advance of the imposition of gates.
Further, the 2014 amendments enhanced transparency for MMF investors and provided
information about important MMF events more uniformly and efficiently. For instance, the
amendments required MMFs to promptly report certain significant events in filings with the
SEC, including the imposition or removal of fees or gates, portfolio security defaults, the use of
sponsor support, and a fall in a retail or government MMF’s market-based price per share below
$0.9975. The 2014 reforms also generally required website disclosure of these events, as well as
daily website disclosure of a fund’s DLA, WLA, market-based NAV, and net flows. In addition,
the reforms addressed MMF diversification and valuation practices.
C. State of the Money Market Fund Industry Following the 2008 Financial Crisis
Since 2008, the composition of the MMF sector has changed substantially, and the
industry continued to evolve through 2020. Chart 1 provides information about changes in net
assets by type of MMF, while Chart 2 provides more detail about subcategories of prime and tax-
exempt MMFs (i.e., retail and institutional funds). As of September 30, 2020, total industry net
assets were $4.9 trillion, down slightly from an all-time high of $5.2 trillion in May 2020 (see
Chart 1).
12
Government MMFs are permitted (but not required) to adopt fee and gate provisions.
9
Chart 1
10
Chart 2
13
The assets of government MMFs (the blue line in Chart 1), which were under $1 trillion
in August 2008, have grown considerably since then. Much of the growth occurred in 2016,
when government MMF assets increased more than $1 trillion as investors shifted money from
prime and tax-exempt MMFs, which were required, starting in October 2016, to implement the
more significant aspects of the 2014 reforms.
14
In March 2020, government MMF assets
increased by $840 billion to $3.6 trillion, and their assets reached nearly $4.0 trillion at the end
of April. As of September 2020, government MMFs accounted for 77 percent of industry net
assets.
The net assets of prime MMFs (the red line in Chart 1) contracted substantially in the
year leading up to the October 2016 deadline for implementing the 2014 MMF reforms and were
$550 billion in December 2016. By February 2020, these funds’ assets had recovered to $1.1
trillion, but their assets fell $125 billion on net in March. As of September 2020, prime MMFs
accounted for around 20 percent of industry net assets.
13
The 2014 amendments introduced a regulatory definition of a retail MMF (and implemented it in 2016).
Because data on institutional and retail MMFs prior to October 2016 may not be entirely comparable with
current statistics, Chart 2 does not include data on retail and institutional MMFs prior to October 2016.
The drop in prime retail MMF assets in September 2020 is the result of a large prime retail MMF
converting to a government MMF.
14
The compliance date for the floating NAV requirement for institutional prime and institutional tax-exempt
MMFs and for the fee and gate provisions for all prime and tax-exempt funds was October 14, 2016.
11
Net assets in tax-exempt MMFs (the dashed green line in Chart 1) have also declined
since 2008, when these funds had net assets exceeding $500 billion. Tax-exempt funds’ assets
fell $120 billion in the year before October 2016 and were about $135 billion at the end of 2016.
By February 2020, tax-exempt fund assets were about $140 billion, and they declined $9 billion
in March 2020. The vast majority of tax-exempt MMF net assets are in retail funds (see Chart 2).
Tax-exempt MMFs represent under three percent of total industry net assets as of September
2020.
III. Events in March 2020
Amid escalating concerns about the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in
March 2020, market participants sought to rapidly shift their holdings toward cash and short-
term government securities. This rapid shift in asset allocation preferences placed stress on
various components of short-term funding markets, including prime and tax-exempt MMFs, the
repo markets, the CP market, and short-term municipal securities markets (including the market
for variable-rate demand notes (“VRDNs”)). As discussed in more detail below, pressures on
prime and tax-exempt MMFs again revealed structural vulnerabilities in MMFs that led to
increased redemptions and, in turn, began to contribute to and increase the general stress in
short-term funding markets.
A. Stresses in Short-Term Funding Markets
Private short-term debt markets. In markets for private short-term debt instruments, such
as CP and NCDs, conditions began to deteriorate rapidly in the second week of March. Spreads
for instruments held by MMFs began widening sharply (see Chart 3). Specifically, spreads to
overnight indexed swaps (“OIS”) for AA-rated nonfinancial CP reached new historical highs,
while spreads for AA-rated financial CP and A2/P2-rated nonfinancial CP widened to the highest
levels seen since the 2008 financial crisis. Along with widening spreads, new issuance of CP and
NCDs declined markedly and shifted to short tenors. For instance, the share of CP issuance with
overnight maturity climbed steadily to nearly 90 percent on March 23.
Pricing and liquidity concerns at MMFs were driven by, and began to contribute to, these
market stresses. Widening spreads in short-term funding markets put downward pressure on the
prices of assets in prime MMFs’ portfolios, and redemptions from MMFs likely contributed to
stress in these markets, as prime funds reduced their CP holdings disproportionately compared to
other holders. At the end of February, prime MMFs offered to the public owned about 19 percent
of outstanding CP.
15
From March 10 to March 24, these funds cut their CP holdings by $35
billion. This reduction accounted for 74 percent of the $48 billion overall decline in outstanding
15
Total CP outstanding at the end of February 2020 was $1.1 trillion (source: Federal Reserve). Holdings of
publicly-offered prime funds are based on data from iMoneyNet. Total prime MMF holdings of CP,
including internal funds that are not offered to the public, were 29 percent of outstanding CP at the end of
February 2020 (source: SEC Form N-MFP).
12
CP over those two weeks.
16
In addition, MMFs with WLAs close to 30 percent were likely
reluctant to purchase assets with maturities of more than 7 days that would not qualify as WLA
to avoid going below the regulatory requirements.
17
Beyond MMFs, there were also other factors
contributing to stress in CP markets, including outflows from other investment vehicles that
invest in these markets (see below).
Some market participants have suggested that another contributing factor to stress in CP
markets was that dealers in CP markets (as well as issuing dealers and banks) were experiencing
their own liquidity pressures and limits on their willingness to intermediate in money markets.
18
Historically, however, because the vast majority of CP typically is held to maturity, dealers have
not had a substantial role in making secondary markets in CP. This is also the case for other
private short-term debt instruments that prime MMFs hold. Thus, there was no reason to expect
dealers to take a materially increased intermediation role in these assets in March. There are also
a large number of individual issues (i.e., CUSIPs) in the private short-term debt markets, which
adds complexity to intermediation.
19
In contrast to the private short-term debt markets, Treasury
and agency securities markets have fewer CUSIPs, large daily trading volumes, and more liquid
secondary markets, with primary dealers and others playing a large daily intermediation role in
these markets.
16
About $6 billion of the reduction in MMF holdings of CP during this time was pledged as collateral to the
MMLF.
17
Funds with WLAs below the 30 percent minimum threshold are prohibited from purchasing assets that are
not WLAs, including CP and NCDs with maturities exceeding 7 days. On March 17 and 18, one prime
MMF offered to institutional investors reported WLAs below 30 percent.
18
For example, large customer sales increased dealers’ inventories of Treasuries and mortgage-backed
securities. Facing balance sheet constraints and internal risk limits amid the elevated volatility, dealers cut
back on intermediation more generally.
19
According to DTCC’s Money Market Kinetics report as of March 31, 2020 (available at
https://www.dtcc.com/money-markets), the 12-month average of daily settlements for fixed and floating
rate CP was approximately $80 billion, although only a small share of this volume appears to have been
secondary market transactions, and further analysis of secondary market activity is needed. As previously
noted, there was approximately $1.1 trillion of total CP outstanding at the end of February 2020.
13
Chart 3
Short-term municipal debt markets. Conditions in short-term municipal debt markets also
worsened rapidly in mid-March. Similar to the relationship between the CP market and prime
MMFs discussed above, stresses in short-term municipal markets contributed to pricing pressures
and outflows for tax-exempt MMFs which, in turn, contributed to increased stress in municipal
markets. Beginning on March 12, tax-exempt MMFs experienced unusually large redemptions,
with outflows accelerating over the next week. In response, tax-exempt funds reduced their
holdings of VRDNs by about 16 percent ($15 billion) in the two weeks from March 9 to March
23, with primary dealer VRDN inventories nearly tripling in the week ending March 18. VRDNs
have a demand or tender feature that allows tax-exempt MMFs to require the tender agent to
repurchase the security at par plus accrued interest. When a tax-exempt MMF tenders a VRDN, a
remarketing agent typically remarkets the VRDN to other investors at a higher yield (and thus a
lower price).
The redemption stresses on tax-exempt MMFs likely contributed to worsening conditions
in short-term municipal debt markets. The SIFMA 7-day municipal swap index yield, a
benchmark weekly rate in these markets, shot up 392 basis points on March 18, as remarketing
agents offered VRDNs at higher yields in response to tax-exempt MMFs putting back their notes
to tender agents. The spike in the SIFMA index yield caused a drop in market-based NAVs of
tax-exempt MMFs (which mostly have stable, rounded NAVs).
14
B. Stresses on Prime and Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds and Other Money-
Market Investment Vehicles
As part of the general deterioration in short-term funding market conditions, prime and
tax-exempt MMFs experienced heavy redemptions beginning in the second week of March 2020.
Outflows increased quickly, peaking on March 17 for prime funds (the day the Federal Reserve
announced the CPFF) and on March 23 for tax-exempt funds (one business day after the Federal
Reserve’s MMLF was expanded to include tax-exempt securities).
20
Institutional prime fund outflows. Among institutional prime MMFs offered to the public,
outflows as a percentage of fund size exceeded those in the September 2008 crisis. However, the
dollar amount of outflows from these funds was much smaller in March 2020, in part because
their assets on the eve of the pandemic were less than one-quarter of their size on the eve of the
2008 crisis. Over the two-week period from March 11 to 24, net redemptions from publicly-
offered institutional prime funds totaled 30 percent (about $100 billion) of the funds’ assets, and
these funds’ outflows exceeded 5 percent of their assets on three consecutive days beginning on
March 17. For comparison, in September 2008, the highest outflows from these funds over a
two-week period were about 26 percent (about $350 billion) of assets.
21
A sizable portion of the institutional prime fund sector’s assets are in funds that are not
offered to the public.
22
These non-public funds had smaller outflows than their publicly-offered
counterparts, indicating that, on average, the former do not demonstrate the same vulnerabilities
as funds that are offered publicly to a broad range of unaffiliated institutional investors. This
difference may be attributable to investor characteristics as much as or more than the nonpublic
nature of the offering. Outflows from non-public institutional prime funds totaled 6 percent ($17
billion) of assets from March 9 to March 20.
23
Retail prime fund outflows. Although outflows from retail prime MMFs as a share of
assets in March exceeded retail prime MMF outflows during the 2008 crisis, the March outflows
20
The following discussion provides data on the size of the largest outflows from different types of MMFs
during a given two-week (10 business day) period in March. These two-week periods do not necessarily
coincide. For example, the two-week period for institutional prime funds begins two days before that for
retail prime funds, in part because institutional prime funds experienced heavy redemptions earlier than
retail prime funds. Using data for one-week periods provides qualitatively similar results. For comparison
purposes, we also provide data on outflows for a standard two-week period from March 9 to March 20 for
all types of MMFs, based on SEC Form N-MFP weekly data.
21
Data on daily MMF flows are from iMoneyNet. SEC Form N-MFP provides an official source of weekly
flows data (for weeks ending on Fridays). For the two weeks from March 9 to 20, outflows from
institutional prime funds that are offered to the public (as proxied by their presence in commercial
databases) totaled $90 billion (27 percent of assets). Form N-MFP weekly flows data are not available for
the September 2008 crisis.
22
See footnote 7 and accompanying text for an explanation of publicly-offered funds versus non-public funds.
23
Source: SEC Form N-MFP.
15
from retail prime MMFs were smaller than outflows from institutional prime MMFs. The
redemptions from retail prime MMFs in March began a couple of days after those for
institutional funds. Net redemptions totaled 9 percent (just over $40 billion) of assets over the
two weeks from March 13 to 26.
24
In September 2008, the heaviest retail outflows over a two-
week period totaled 5 percent of assets. Retail prime funds had about 60 percent more assets in
2008 than in February 2020, so outflows were similar in dollar terms in both crises.
25
Some retail
prime MMFs experienced declining market-based prices in March, but none of these funds
reported a market-based price below $0.9975. Moreover, retail prime MMF flows in March 2020
appear to have been unrelated to market-based prices, as funds with lower market-based prices
did not experience larger outflows than other retail prime MMFs.
Tax-exempt fund outflows and declining market-based prices. Outflows from tax-exempt
MMFs, which are largely retail funds, were 8 percent ($11 billion) of assets during the two
weeks from March 12 to 25.
26
In 2008, when tax-exempt MMF assets were more than four times
larger than in February 2020, such funds had outflows of 7 percent (almost $40 billion) of assets
in one two-week period. In March, some retail tax-exempt MMFs also had declining market-
based prices. Although none of these funds broke the buck, one fund reported a market-based
price below $0.9975.
As with retail prime MMFs, there does not appear to have been a
relationship between a decline in a particular retail tax-exempt MMF’s market-based price and
the size of its outflows.
Declining WLAs and relation to fees and gates. As prime funds experienced heavy
redemptions, their WLAs declined, and some funds’ WLAs (which must be disclosed publicly
each day) approached or fell below the 30 percent minimum threshold that SEC rules require.
Investor redemptions, which may have been further exacerbated by declining WLAs, can put
additional pressure on fund liquidity during times of stress. As previously noted, when a fund’s
WLA falls below 30 percent, the fund can impose fees or gates on redemptions. Market
participants reported concerns that the imposition of a fee or gate by one fund, as well as the
perception that a fee or gate would be imposed by one fund, could spark widespread redemptions
from other funds, leading to further stresses in the underlying markets. Although one institutional
prime fund (with assets that declined from $3.8 billion at the end of February to $1.5 billion at
the end of March) had WLAs below the 30 percent minimum, it did not impose a fee or gate in
March.
24
Source: iMoneyNet daily data. Similarly, data from SEC Form N-MFP show retail prime fund outflows of
7 percent of assets ($33 billion) over the two week period from March 9 to 20.
25
See footnote 13 (explaining that data on institutional and retail MMFs prior to 2016 may not be entirely
comparable with current statistics).
26
Source: iMoneyNet daily data. Similarly, data from SEC form N-MFP show tax-exempt fund outflows of 8
percent of assets ($11 billion) over the two weeks from March 9 to 20.
16
Preliminary research indicates that prime fund outflows accelerated as WLAs declined,
suggesting that the potential imposition of a fee or gate when a fund’s WLA drops below 30
percent encouraged institutional investors to redeem before that threshold was crossed.
27
Additionally, some market participants and observers have suggested that investors’ potential
motivation to redeem as a MMF moves toward the 30 percent threshold is primarily driven by
concerns about gates, rather than liquidity fees, because MMF investors have a low tolerance for
being unable to access cash on demand.
Sponsor support. As strains on prime and tax-exempt MMFs worsened, two fund
sponsors provided support for their funds. They did so by purchasing securities from three prime
institutional MMFs and making a capital contribution to one tax-exempt fund.
Other investment vehicles that invest in securities and other instruments similar to
MMFs. Other investment vehicles that invest in instruments held by MMFs also experienced
outflows and stress in March. Short-term investment funds (“STIFs”) operated by banks, which
have assets of about $300 billion, had outflows in March and experienced related stress.
28
Ultra-
short corporate bond mutual funds, which had assets of $200 billion in February 2020, had
outflows of $33 billion (16 percent of assets) in March.
29
In addition, in the two weeks from
March 12 to 25, outflows from European dollar-denominated MMFs investing in assets similar
to U.S. prime MMFs (so-called offshore MMFs, which are largely domiciled in Ireland and
Luxembourg), totaled 25 percent (about $95 billion) of assets.
30
Prime and tax-exempt MMFs’ role in short-term funding markets’ stress. Short-term
funding markets are interconnected with other market segments, and stress in one market can
lead to stress in others. Prime and tax-exempt MMFs were not the sole contributors to the
pressures in short-term funding markets.
31
However, it appears that MMF actions were
27
See Lei Li, Yi Li, Marco Macchiavelli, and Xing (Alex) Zhou, “Runs and Interventions in the Time of
COVID-19: Evidence from Money Funds,” working paper (2020), available at
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3607593.
28
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), which oversees national banks operating STIFs,
issued an interim final rule and an administrative order allowing STIFs to extend their dollar-weighted
average portfolio maturity and dollar-weighted average portfolio life maturity to alleviate pressure on STIF
management’s ability to comply with these maturity limits in light of stressed market conditions. See Short-
Term Investment Funds, 85 FR 16888 (Mar. 25, 2020), available at https://www.occ.gov/news-
issuances/federal-register/2020/85fr16888.pdf.
29
Source: Morningstar data.
30
Source: iMoneyNet data.
31
For example, leveraged non-bank entities, such as hedge funds using Treasury collateral and real estate
investment trusts using agency mortgage-backed security collateral, may have also contributed to pressure
in short-term funding markets. See, e.g., FSOC Annual Report 2020 at p.5, available at
https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/261/FSOC2020AnnualReport.pdf.
17
particularly significant relative to market size. For example, as noted above, prime funds reduced
their CP holdings disproportionately compared to other holders.
32
C. Taxpayer-Supported Central Bank Intervention
On March 18, 2020, the Federal Reserve, with the approval of the Secretary of the
Treasury, authorized the MMLF, which began to operate on March 23.
33
The MMLF provides
non-recourse loans to U.S. depository institutions and bank holding companies to finance their
purchases of specified eligible assets from MMFs under certain conditions. The non-recourse
nature of the loan protects the borrower from any losses on the asset pledged to secure the
MMLF loan. The Federal Reserve, along with the OCC and Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (“FDIC”), also took steps to neutralize the effects of purchasing assets through the
MMLF on risk-based and leveraged capital ratios and liquidity coverage ratio requirements of
financial institutions to facilitate participation in the facility.
34
The MMLF program, in
combination with other programs, was intended to stabilize the U.S. financial system by allowing
MMFs to raise cash to meet redemptions and to foster liquidity in the markets for the assets held
by MMFs, including the markets for CP, NCDs, and short-term municipal securities.
35
The
Department of the Treasury provided $10 billion of credit protection to the Federal Reserve in
connection with the MMLF from the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund.
36
MMLF
utilization ramped up quickly to a peak of just over $50 billion in early April, or about 5 percent
of net assets in prime and tax-exempt MMFs at the time.
Outflows from prime MMFs abated fairly quickly after the Federal Reserve’s
announcement of programs and other actions to support short-term funding markets and the flow
of credit to households and businesses more generally, including its initial announcement of the
32
See paragraph accompanying footnote 15.
33
Information about the MMLF is available on the Federal Reserve’s website at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/mmlf.htm. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston operates
the MMLF.
34
See Regulatory Capital Rule: Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, 85 FR 16232 (March 23,
2020), available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/23/2020-06156/regulatory-capital-
rule-money-market-mutual-fund-liquidity-facility; Liquidity Coverage Ratio Rule: Treatment of Certain
Emergency Facilities, 85 FR 26835 (May 6, 2020), available at
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/05/06/2020-09716/liquidity-coverage-ratio-rule-
treatment-of-certain-emergency-facilities.
35
The MMLF would not have worked in isolation, and other programs and monetary policy responses would
not have worked as well without the MMLF. See SEC Staff Interconnectedness Report; Marco Cipriani et
al., “Municipal Debt Markets and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” (June 29, 2020), available at
https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2020/06/municipal-debt-markets-and-the-covid-19-
pandemic.html.
36
The CARES Act also temporarily removed restrictions on Treasury’s authority to use the Exchange
Stabilization Fund to guarantee money market funds. See section 4015 of the CARES Act. This authority
has not been used.
18
MMLF on March 18.
37
Overall market conditions also began to improve. For example, in the CP
market, the share of CP issuance with overnight maturity began to fall on March 24 and spreads
to OIS for most types of term CP started narrowing a few days later. After the expansion of the
MMLF to include municipal securities on March 20 (and VRDNs on March 23), tax-exempt
MMF outflows eased and conditions in short-term municipal debt markets improved. Beyond the
MMLF, several other Federal Reserve actions and announcements in March likely contributed to
these improved conditions. For example, the Federal Open Market Committee lowered the target
range for the federal funds rates twice in March by a total of 150 basis points. A large increase in
open market purchases of Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities was
announced on March 15, and establishments of the PDCF and the CPFF were announced on
March 17.
While stress affected a variety of money market instruments and investment vehicles, the
broad policy responses from the Federal Reserve, including the availability of secondary market
liquidity for MMFs through the MMLF, appeared to have had the intended broad calming effect
on short-term funding markets. For instance, although European dollar-denominated MMFs are
not eligible to participate in the MMLF, outflows from these funds abated shortly after the
MMLF began operations. The resulting stability in short-term funding markets, along with the
fiscal stimulus provided by the CARES Act and the expectation of continued accommodative
monetary policy, facilitated stability in the capital markets more generally.
IV. Potential Policy Measures to Increase the Resilience of Prime and Tax-Exempt
Money Market Funds
While many of the post-2008 MMF reforms added stability to MMFs, the events of
March 2020 show that more work is needed to reduce the risk that structural vulnerabilities in
prime and tax-exempt MMFs will lead to or exacerbate stresses in short-term funding markets.
The following discussion sets forth potential policy measures that could address the risks prime
and tax-exempt MMFs pose to short-term funding markets. This report is meant to facilitate
discussion. The PWG is not endorsing any given measure at this time.
37
See, e.g., “Federal Reserve Issues FOMC Statement” (March 15, 2020), available at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200315a.htm; “Federal Reserve
Actions to Support the Flow of Credit to Households and Businesses” (March 15, 2020), available at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200315b.htm; “Federal Reserve
Board Announces Establishment of a Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) to Support the Flow of
Credit to Households and Businesses” (March 17, 2020), available at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200317a.htm; “Federal Reserve
Board Announces Establishment of a Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) to Support the Credit Needs
of Households and Businesses” (March 17, 2020), available at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200317b.htm; “Federal Reserve
Board Broadens Program of Support for the Flow of Credit to Households and Businesses by Establishing a
Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (MMLF)” (March 18, 2020), available at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200318a.htm.
19
These potential policy measures differ in terms of the scope and breadth of regulatory
changes they would require. For example, many of the potential reforms would apply only to
prime and tax-exempt MMFs, while reforms such as swing pricing could apply to mutual funds
more generally. Moreover, some potential reforms would involve targeted amendments to SEC
rules, which relevant MMFs could likely implement fairly quickly, while others would involve
longer-term structural changes or may require coordinated action by multiple agencies. The
different measures are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor are they equally effective at
mitigating the vulnerabilities of prime and tax-exempt MMFs. Policy makers could combine
certain measures within a single set of reforms. Some policy measures listed below have been
raised for consideration previously, including in the PWG’s October 2010 report on MMF
reform options and the FSOC’s 2012 proposed recommendations on MMF reform, and warrant
renewed consideration in light of recent MMF stresses.
This report focuses on reform measures for MMFs only. It is important to recognize
MMFs’ role in the market events in March 2020 and to examine measures that would address
concerns and structural vulnerabilities specific to MMFs. Although they are beyond the scope of
this report, and as discussed generally above, there were other stresses in short-term funding
markets in March 2020 that may have contributed to the pressure on MMFs.
As discussed in more detail below, the potential policy measures for prime and tax-
exempt MMFs explored in this report are:
• Removal of Tie between MMF Liquidity and Fee and Gate Thresholds;
• Reform of Conditions for Imposing Redemption Gates;
• Minimum Balance at Risk (“MBR”);
• Money Market Fund Liquidity Management Changes;
• Countercyclical Weekly Liquid Asset Requirements;
• Floating NAVs for All Prime and Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds;
• Swing Pricing Requirement;
• Capital Buffer Requirements;
• Require Liquidity Exchange Bank (“LEB”) Membership; and
• New Requirements Governing Sponsor Support.
Overarching goals for MMF reform. As a threshold matter, it should be recognized
that the various policy reforms, individually and in combination, should be evaluated in terms of
their ability to effectively advance the overarching goals of reform. That is:
• First, would they effectively address the MMF structural vulnerabilities that
contributed to stress in short-term funding markets?
• Second, would they improve the resilience and functioning of short-term funding
markets?
20
• Third, would they reduce the likelihood that official sector interventions and taxpayer
support will be needed to halt future MMF runs or address stresses in short-term
funding markets more generally?
Assessment of the MMF reform options. An assessment of the effectiveness of reform
options in achieving these goals should take into account: (a) how each option would address
MMF structural vulnerabilities and contribute to the overarching goals; (b) the effect of each
option on short-term funding markets and the MMF sector more broadly, including through its
effects on the resilience, functioning, and stability of short-term funding markets, as well as
whether the reform option would trigger the growth of existing investment strategies and
products, or the development of new strategies and products, that could either exacerbate or
mitigate market vulnerabilities; and (c) potential drawbacks, limitations, or challenges specific to
each reform option. The reform options considered in this report seek to achieve the goals in
different ways. For example, some are intended to address the liquidity-related stresses that were
evident in March 2020, while others also touch on potential credit-related concerns. This menu
of options reflects the possibility that future financial stress events may affect the liquidity of
short-term investments, their credit quality, or both.
(a) How the reform options would seek to achieve the goals.
1) Internalize liquidity costs of investors' redemptions, particularly in stress
periods. Some options would impose a cost on redeeming investors that rises as
liquidity stress increases to reflect the costs of redemptions for the fund. These
options, particularly swing pricing and the MBR, could reduce or eliminate first-
mover advantages for redeeming investors and protect investors who do not redeem.
2) Decouple regulatory thresholds from consequences such as gates, fees, or a
sudden drop in NAV. Some options, such as those that revise fee and gate thresholds
or introduce the floating NAV for retail prime and tax-exempt MMFs, could
eliminate or diminish the importance of thresholds (such as 30 percent WLA or an
NAV of $0.995) that may spur investor redemptions. By diminishing the importance
of thresholds, these options could also give MMFs greater flexibility, for example, to
tap their own liquid assets to meet redemptions.
3) Improve MMFs’ ability to use available liquidity in times of stress. In March
2020, some prime and tax-exempt MMFs may have avoided using their liquid assets
to meet redemptions. Options such as countercyclical WLA requirements or revisions
to fee and gate thresholds could make MMFs more comfortable in deploying their
liquid assets in times of stress.
4) Commit private resources ex ante to enable MMFs to withstand liquidity stress
or a credit crisis. When prime and tax-exempt MMFs have encountered serious
21
strains, official sector interventions have followed quickly. Options such as capital
buffers, explicit sponsor support, and the LEB could provide committed private
resources to supply liquidity or absorb losses and thus reduce the likelihood that
official sector support would be needed to calm markets.
5) Further improve liquidity and portfolio risk management. Changes to liquidity
management requirements could include raising required liquid-asset buffers. Other
options could motivate more conservative risk management by explicitly making fund
sponsors or others responsible for absorbing any heightened liquidity needs or losses
in their MMFs.
6) Clarify that MMF investors, rather than taxpayers, bear market risks.
Government support has repeatedly provided emergency liquidity to prime and tax-
exempt funds and also has obscured the risks of liquidity and credit shocks for
MMFs. Some options, such as the floating NAV for retail prime and tax-exempt
MMFs, swing pricing, and the MBR could make risks to investors more apparent.
(b) Effects on short-term funding markets. The reform options are intended to reduce
the structural vulnerabilities of MMFs, which could make them a more stable source of short-
term funding for financial institutions, businesses, and state and local governments. This would
improve the stability and resilience of short-term funding markets.
At the same time, some of the reform options would likely diminish the size of prime and
tax-exempt MMFs, which would also affect the functioning of short-term funding markets. A
shrinkage of MMFs could reduce the supply of short-term funding for financial institutions,
businesses, and state and local governments. Making prime and tax-exempt MMFs less desirable
as cash-management vehicles also could cause investors to move to less regulated and less
transparent mutualized cash-management vehicles that are also susceptible to runs that cause
stress in short-term funding markets.
A reduction in the size of prime and tax-exempt MMFs may not necessarily be
inappropriate if, for example, the growth of these funds has reflected in part the effects of
implicit taxpayer subsidies and other externalities (that is, broader economic costs of runs that
are not borne by investors or the funds). In addition, if these MMFs remain run prone, a
reduction in the size of the industry could mitigate the effects of future runs from these funds on
short-term funding markets.
The aftermath of the 2014 MMF reforms provides a precedent for the consequences of a
substantial reduction in the size of prime and tax-exempt funds, although a future experience
could differ. In the year before the October 2016 implementation deadline for those reforms,
aggregate prime MMF assets shrank by $1.2 trillion (69 percent) and tax-exempt MMF assets
declined about $120 billion (47 percent). Nonetheless, to the extent that spreads for instruments
22
held by these MMFs were affected, they generally widened only temporarily, and investor
migration to other mutualized cash-management vehicles was largely limited to shifts to
government MMFs. (Over the next three years, prime MMFs regained about half of the 2015-
2016 decline.)
These considerations are important, because some of the reform options could reduce the
size of the prime and tax-exempt fund sectors by:
• Reducing attractiveness of prime and tax-exempt MMFs for investors. The costs
associated with some options, such as capital buffers and LEB membership, may
reduce the funds’ yields. The MBR would limit the liquidity of their shares in some
circumstances. The floating NAV requirement and swing pricing would make NAVs
more volatile and MMF shares less cash-like. And investors may view some policies,
such as swing pricing and the MBR, as unfamiliar, restrictive, and complicated.
• Increasing costs associated with MMF sponsorship. Some options, such as the
introduction of capital buffers, required LEB membership, and explicit sponsor
support, could raise operating costs for sponsors. Other options, such as swing pricing
and MBR, may also have sizable implementation costs. Increased costs and
operational complexity could lead to increased concentration and a reduction in the
overall size of the MMF industry.
(c) Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges specific to each option.
Evaluation of the reform options also should take into account potential drawbacks, limitations,
and challenges of each option, such as implementation challenges or limits on an option’s ability
to achieve the desired goals. The report discusses these considerations for each option below.
Several specific policy options are described below, along with a high-level analysis of
the potential benefits and drawbacks of each option.
A. Removal of Tie between MMF Liquidity and Fee and Gate Thresholds
Liquidity fees and redemption gates are intended to give MMF boards tools to stem
heavy redemptions by imposing a fee to reduce shareholders’ incentives to redeem or by
stopping redemptions altogether for a period of time. Currently, MMF boards have discretion to
impose fees or gates when WLAs fall below 30 percent of total assets and generally must impose
a fee of 1 percent if WLAs fall below 10 percent, unless the board determines that such a fee
would not be in the best interest of the fund or that a lower or higher (up to 2 percent) liquidity
fee is in the best interests of the fund.
Definitive thresholds for permissible imposition of liquidity fees and redemption gates
may have the unintended effect of triggering preemptive investor redemptions as funds approach
23
the relevant thresholds. Some preliminary research suggests that redemptions accelerated in
March 2020 from funds with declining WLAs.
38
Removing the tie between the 30 percent and 10
percent WLA thresholds and the imposition of fees and gates is one possible reform. Fund
boards could be permitted to impose fees or gates when doing so is in the best interest of the
fund, without reference to any specific level of liquidity.
Potential benefits:
• Removing the tie between the WLA thresholds and funds’ ability to impose gates and
fees would reduce the salience of these thresholds and could diminish the incentive
for preemptive runs.
• This may improve the usability of WLA buffers by making MMFs more comfortable
in deploying their liquid assets in times of stress.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• While this option would remove a focal point that may trigger runs, it would do little
otherwise to mitigate run incentives.
• If MMFs maintain fewer liquid assets (by holding WLA levels closer to 30 percent)
as a result of this change, the funds may be less equipped to manage significant
redemptions without engaging in fire sales.
• Permitting funds to impose fees or gates without reference to a specific threshold may
cause broader contagion if investors fear the imposition of fees or gates in other funds
that otherwise would have been seen as safe.
B. Reform of Conditions for Imposing Redemption Gates
Reforming rules regarding redemption gates to reduce the likelihood that gates may be
imposed could diminish investors’ incentives to engage in preemptive runs. For example, funds
could be required to obtain permission from the SEC or notify the SEC prior to imposing gates.
Alternatively, fund boards could be required to consider liquidity fees before gates, making it
less likely that gates would be imposed. Another option could be to lower the WLA threshold at
which gates could be imposed to, for example, 10 percent.
Gate rules also could be reformed to make gates “soft” or “partial.” With soft gates, for
example, if redemptions on a particular day exceed a certain amount, a fund could reduce each
investor’s redemption pro rata to bring total redemptions below that amount, with remaining
redemption amounts deferred to the next business day (and continuing daily deferrals until all
redemption requests are satisfied). This affords investors at least some liquidity, in contrast to the
complete curtailment of liquidity when a fund suspends all redemptions.
38
See footnote 27, above.
24
Potential benefits:
• Reforming the rules around gates might reduce concerns that gates will be imposed
immediately upon a breach of the 30 percent WLA requirement and reduce the
salience of that threshold, particularly if investors are more concerned about gates
than fees.
• Gates could still be imposed, but only in very dire conditions when runs on funds are
likely anyway.
• This may improve the usability of WLA buffers by making MMFs more comfortable
in deploying their liquid assets in times of stress.
• A “soft” or “partial” gate could reduce disruptions caused by the imposition of a gate
by allowing shareholders to redeem a portion of shares as normal, with a portion held
for a limited time to help the fund slow the rate of redemptions during stress periods
without engaging in fire sales.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• If thresholds remain, they could still be focal points for runs on MMFs.
• While this option could reduce the salience of a threshold that may trigger runs, it
would do little otherwise to mitigate run incentives.
• Reducing the likelihood that a gate may be imposed could reduce the potential utility
of gates as a tool to slow investor redemptions.
• Providing the SEC a role in granting permission for imposition of gates may result in
less timely action than the current framework involving the MMF’s board,
particularly if multiple MMFs seek SEC permission in a short period of time, which
could allow runs to continue or accelerate. Absent a threshold, it could be challenging
to develop objective criteria in advance for quickly approving or denying such
requests in a consistent and appropriate manner amid a fast-moving crisis.
• If MMFs maintain fewer liquid assets (by holding WLA levels closer to 30 percent)
as a result of this change, the funds may be less equipped to manage significant
redemptions without engaging in fire sales.
• Like other gates, a “soft” (or “partial”) gate may spur preemptive runs, but a soft gate
may be less effective at slowing runs than a full gate, as investors can continue to
redeem even after a soft gate has been imposed.
• “Soft” or “partial” gates could introduce accounting and administrative complexities.
C. Minimum Balance at Risk
An MBR is a portion of each shareholder’s recent balances in a MMF that would be
available for redemption only with a time delay to ensure that redeeming investors still remain
partially invested in the fund over a certain time period. As such, even if the investor redeems all
of her available shares, she would still share in any losses incurred by the fund during that
timeframe. A “strong form” of MBR would also put a portion of redeeming investors’ MBRs
first in line to absorb any losses, which creates a disincentive to redeem. The size of the MBR
25
would be a specified fraction of the shareholder’s maximum recent balance (less an exempted
amount). An MBR mechanism could be used in a floating NAV fund to allocate losses only
under certain rare circumstances, such as when the fund suffers a large drop in NAV or is closed.
Potential benefits:
• A properly calibrated “strong” MBR could reduce the vulnerability of MMFs to runs.
• A strong MBR can internalize the liquidity costs of investors’ redemptions and thus
reduce or eliminate the first-mover advantage for redeeming investors. It would do so
by subordinating a portion of their shares to put them at greater risk if the fund suffers
a loss. This can weigh against incentives to redeem in a stress event, so it can be
particularly helpful as liquidity costs rise.
39
• The disincentive to redeem created by an MBR strengthens mechanically as stresses
increase and put subordinated shares at greater risk. Hence, the MBR does not create
a threshold effect that might spur redemptions.
• Under a strong form of MBR, the subordinated shares of redeeming investors provide
extra loss absorption to protect the investments of non-redeeming investors.
• An MBR could provide more transparency to shareholders regarding their risk, as
shareholders’ account information could include their balances and the size of their
MBRs.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• The MBR could present implementation and administration challenges. For example,
MMFs, intermediaries, and service providers would need to update systems to: (1)
compute the MBR on an ongoing basis for each shareholder account and update the
allocation of unrestricted, holdback, or subordinated holdback shares for each account
to reflect any additional subscriptions or redemptions and the passage of time; and (2)
prevent a shareholder from redeeming holdback or subordinated holdback shares in
transaction processing systems.
40
In addition, a “strong form” of MBR may create the
need to convert existing MMF shares or issue new subordinated shares to comply
with typical state law limitations on allocating losses to a subset of shares in a single
share class.
• An MBR mechanism may have different and unequal effects on investors in stable
NAV and floating NAV MMFs. During the holdback period, investors in a stable
39
See, for example, FSOC Proposed Recommendations; Patrick E. McCabe, Marco Cipriani, Michael
Holscher, and Antoine Martin, “The Minimum Balance at Risk: A Proposal to Mitigate the Systemic Risks
Posed by Money Market Funds,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (Spring 2013), available at
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_mccabe.pdf.
40
Many MMF investors hold their shares through intermediaries (such as broker-dealers, banks, trust
companies, and retirement plan administrators) that establish omnibus accounts with the fund. An
intermediary’s omnibus account aggregates shares held on behalf of its underlying clients or beneficiaries,
and the fund does not have access to information about these underlying clients or beneficiaries. As a
result, intermediaries would be involved in implementing MBR reforms.
26
NAV MMF would only experience losses if the fund breaks the buck, but investors in
a floating NAV MMF are always exposed to changes in the fund’s NAV and would
continue to be exposed to such risk for any shares held back.
• The MBR is an unfamiliar concept in the fund industry that may result in investor
discomfort or confusion, particularly when it is first introduced.
• Calibrating the appropriate size for an MBR could be a challenge; an MBR that is too
small may not create sufficient disincentives to redeem in stress events, but one that is
too large would unnecessarily reduce the liquidity of the fund’s shares.
D. Money Market Fund Liquidity Management Changes
MMFs currently are subject to daily and weekly liquid asset requirements and must
disclose the amount of daily and weekly liquid assets each day on the fund’s website. Changes to
liquidity management requirements could include a new category of liquidity requirements. For
example, instead of focusing solely on daily and weekly liquid assets, creating an additional
category for assets with slightly longer maturities (e.g., biweekly liquid assets) could strengthen
funds’ near-term portfolio liquidity when short-term funding markets become stressed.
As another alternative, an additional threshold, such as a WLA threshold of 40 percent,
could be set to augment current liquidity buffers. If a fund’s WLAs fell below this threshold,
penalties such as requiring the escrow of fund management fees until the level of WLA is
restored could be imposed on fund managers, rather than investors. This effectively would
require funds to maintain a larger amount of WLAs than currently required.
Potential benefits:
• An additional tier of liquidity may make MMFs more resilient to significant
redemptions by ensuring they maintain assets that will soon become WLAs.
Additional liquidity requirements also could limit “barbell” strategies (where a fund
offsets its short-term assets with riskier longer-term assets that enhance returns but
increase the riskiness of the fund’s portfolio).
• Rules to penalize fund managers first for having inadequate portfolio liquidity have
the potential to diminish the salience of WLA thresholds to investors by ensuring that
initial consequences for crossing the thresholds are not imposed directly on investors.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• Requiring funds to purchase additional near-term liquid assets or maintain larger
WLAs to avoid penalties might encourage funds to take greater risks in the less liquid
parts of their portfolios, particularly in a low interest rate environment, absent other
measures to constrain this behavior.
• Imposing the escrow of fees or other penalties on fund managers if WLAs do not
meet a new higher minimum requirement could further diminish the usability of
27
WLA buffers by making MMFs less comfortable in deploying their liquid assets in
times of stress.
• Further increases in liquid asset requirements may provide funds only a little extra
time during a run, as institutional prime fund outflows exceeded 5 percent of assets
per day at the height of the run in March 2020.
• Additional liquid asset requirements for MMFs could heighten roll-over risks for
issuers of short-term debt that may see more demand for issuance in shorter tenors. In
addition, to the extent that new investors would replace MMFs in the tenors outside
the near-term liquidity requirements, transparency regarding the nature of these
investors may be lower.
• It is not clear whether the required escrow of fees or other penalties could be imposed
on fund managers in a way that would not also affect MMF investors (e.g., fund
managers may respond by reducing the amount of fees they waive).
Additional considerations:
• Funds that purchase additional near-term liquid assets or maintain larger WLAs to
avoid penalties may generate lower yield compared to similar investment products,
which may reduce investor demand for such funds. As noted above, a reduction in the
size of the prime and tax-exempt MMF sectors could affect the resilience and
functioning of short-term funding markets in a variety of ways.
E. Countercyclical Weekly Liquid Asset Requirements
During the market stress in March 2020, prime and tax-exempt MMFs that were close to
the 30 percent WLA threshold may have avoided using their liquid assets to meet redemptions.
MMFs’ incentives to maintain WLAs well above the 30 percent minimum, even in the face of
significant outflows, may include the desires to avoid: (1) prohibitions on purchasing assets that
are not WLAs; (2) raising investor concerns about the potential imposition of fees or gates; and
(3) potential scrutiny resulting from public disclosure of low WLA amounts. A countercyclical
WLA requirement could reduce some or all of these concerns. Under this approach, minimum
WLA requirements could automatically decline in certain circumstances, such as when net
redemptions are large or when the SEC provides temporary relief from WLA requirements. Any
thresholds linked to a fund’s minimum WLA requirements (e.g., fee or gate thresholds) would
also move with the minimum.
Potential benefits:
• A countercyclical WLA requirement could reduce the salience of the 30 percent
WLA threshold and may lessen redemption pressures when a fund is near that
threshold.
• This may improve the usability of WLA buffers by making MMFs more comfortable
in deploying their liquid assets in times of stress.
28
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• Funds that reduce WLAs in stress events would be less equipped to manage
additional redemptions without engaging in fire sales.
• Even if the WLA threshold is reduced, threshold effects may still motivate investors
to redeem. In addition, investors may still prefer to redeem from funds that are
approaching or breaching the standard 30 percent threshold, and reduced WLA
minimums may in fact call attention to potential stress and prompt greater investor
outflows.
• The benefits of this change for funds’ use of liquid assets may be modest, as current
rules do not preclude funds from using WLAs to meet redemptions or prohibit funds
from allowing their WLAs to fall below 30 percent.
• Appropriately calibrating a countercyclical WLA requirement, including determining
whether it would be an automatic mechanism or one that the SEC has to adjust in a
crisis, could be challenging.
F. Floating NAVs for All Prime and Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds
Retail prime MMFs and retail tax-exempt MMFs currently can use a rounded NAV and
value portfolio assets at their amortized cost, which permits the funds to sell and redeem shares
at a stable share price (e.g., $1.00) without regard to small variations in the value of the securities
in their portfolios. A floating NAV requirement would ensure that these MMFs instead sell and
redeem their shares at a price that reflects the market value of a fund’s portfolio and any changes
in that value. This would be consistent with floating NAV requirements that currently apply to
institutional prime and institutional tax-exempt MMFs. Although this option would only affect
retail MMFs, those funds had large outflows in March 2020, and outflows likely would have
continued or worsened without official sector intervention.
41
Potential benefits:
• The floating NAV eliminates the salience of a MMF’s NAV dropping more than 0.5
percent ($0.995). Unlike stable NAV funds, MMFs with floating NAVs cannot
“break the buck.”
• Stable NAVs can create an incentive to redeem when MMF portfolios assets lose
value because redeeming investors can receive more for their shares than they are
worth, while losses are concentrated among non-redeeming investors. In contrast, a
floating NAV mitigates that incentive to redeem as losses are spread across all
shareholders on a pro rata basis whether they redeem or not. Thus, a floating NAV
41
Retail prime MMFs and tax-exempt MMFs were under stress during March 2020, with one tax-exempt
MMF receiving sponsor support, although stress among retail funds was less severe than that for
institutional prime MMFs. See Section III.B, above (explaining that outflows from retail prime funds
totaled 9 percent (or just over $40 billion) of assets during the two weeks from March 13 to 26, and
outflows from tax-exempt MMFs—which are largely retail funds—were 8 percent ($11 billion) of assets
during the two weeks from March 12 to 25).
29
requirement may decrease retail prime and tax-exempt MMFs’ vulnerabilities to runs
by mitigating the first mover advantage for redeeming investors.
• Floating NAVs make portfolio risks more transparent by making fluctuations in share
values readily observable, which could better align investors’ expectations with the
risks of portfolio holdings.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• A floating NAV requirement would not affect institutional MMFs, which have
historically been the most vulnerable to runs but already have floating NAVs.
• Institutional prime MMFs with floating NAVs still experienced runs in March;
floating NAVs do not prevent runs.
Additional considerations:
• Floating NAVs could result in a reduction in the size of retail prime and retail tax-
exempt MMF sectors by making retail MMF shares less cash-like, which could
reduce investor demand. As noted above, a reduction in the size of the prime and tax-
exempt MMF sectors could affect the resilience and functioning of short-term
funding markets in a variety of ways.
G. Swing Pricing Requirement
Under current rules, MMF investors redeeming their shares in a prime or tax-exempt fund
typically do not incur the costs associated with this redemption activity. Instead, these costs are
largely borne by other investors in the fund, and this contributes to a first-mover advantage for
those who redeem quickly in a crisis. Swing pricing effectively allows a fund to impose the costs
stemming from redemptions directly on redeeming investors by adjusting the fund’s NAV
downward when net redemptions exceed a threshold.
42
That is, when the NAV “swings” down,
redeeming investors receive less for their shares. A swing pricing requirement could help ensure
that redeeming shareholders bear liquidity costs throughout market cycles (i.e., not only in times
of market stress). In the United States, an optional swing pricing framework is permissible for
certain mutual funds, but not for MMFs.
Although swing pricing is largely untested for MMFs, it
has been helpful for other types of non-U.S. mutual funds.
43
42
If a fund has net inflows above the swing threshold, swing pricing would instead adjust the fund’s NAV
upward.
43
See, for example, Jin, Dunhong, Marcin Kacperczyk, Bige Kahraman, and Felix Suntheim, “Swing Pricing
and Fragility in Open-end Mutual Funds,” IMF Working Paper WP/19/227 (2019); Association of the
Luxembourg Fund Industry, Swing Pricing Update 2015 (Dec. 2015) (“ALFI Survey 2015”) at 21,
available at http://www.alfi.lu/sites/alfi.lu/files/ALFI-Swing-Pricing-Survey-2015-FINAL.pdf.
30
Potential benefits:
• A properly calibrated swing pricing mechanism could reduce the vulnerability of
MMFs to runs.
• Swing pricing can internalize the liquidity costs of investors’ redemptions and thus
reduce or eliminate the first-mover advantage for redeeming investors. By making
redemptions costly, swing pricing can weigh against incentives to redeem in a stress
event, so it can be particularly helpful as liquidity costs rise. Swing pricing also
benefits investors who do not redeem by reducing dilution to the value of a fund’s
shares and insulating these investors from the effects of others’ redemption activity.
• Swing pricing can improve long-run fund performance by reducing dilution.
• If swing pricing is available (and used occasionally) in “normal” times, its use can
help investors understand that they bear liquidity risks in a MMF. Moreover, regular
deployment of swing pricing would make its use in stress events less unsettling for
investors.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• Eligible U.S. mutual funds have yet to implement swing pricing, largely because
implementation would require substantial reconfiguration of current distribution and
order-processing practices. MMFs could face similar challenges.
• Unlike other mutual funds, some MMFs strike their NAVs more than once per day
and allow intraday purchases and redemptions for any orders received prior to a given
NAV strike. The potential management of swing pricing considerations multiple
times per day could be particularly challenging in times of market stress.
• It may be challenging to design and calibrate a swing pricing mechanism that can
effectively internalize liquidity costs for redeeming investors, especially during stress
events.
H. Capital Buffer Requirements
Capital (or “NAV”) buffers, which could be structured in a variety of ways, can provide
dedicated resources within or alongside a fund to absorb losses and can serve to absorb
fluctuations in the value of a fund’s portfolio, reducing the cost to taxpayers in case of a run.
44
For a floating NAV fund, capital buffers could be reserved to absorb the fund’s losses only under
certain rare circumstances, such as when it suffers a large drop in NAV or is closed.
44
See, for example, Craig M. Lewis, “Money Market Fund Capital Buffers,” (April 6, 2015), available
at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2687687; Samuel G. Hanson, David S. Scharfstein,
and Adi Sunderam, “An Evaluation of Money Market Fund Reform Proposals,” (May 2014), available at
https://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2013/mmi/pdf/Scharfstein-Hanson-Sunderam.pdf.
31
Potential benefits:
• A capital buffer adds ex ante loss-absorption capacity to a MMF that would mitigate
MMF shareholders’ risk of losses and their incentives to redeem in a stress event.
• A buffer would mitigate the MMF industry’s reliance on discretionary, ex post
sponsor support by assuring that MMFs already have resources in place to absorb
losses.
• Owners of capital will have incentives to mitigate risk-taking by the fund. For
example, if capital is provided by the fund’s sponsor, the sponsor will have an explicit
incentive to manage portfolio risks to preserve the capital.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• A capital buffer financed from unaffiliated investors could be complex to administer.
• Sizable capital buffers are costly to finance, and building adequate capital buffers
from MMF income could take substantial time, particularly in a low interest rate
environment, and could disadvantage current MMF investors for the benefit of future
MMF investors.
• Calibrating the appropriate size for a capital buffer could be a challenge; MMFs
would continue to be vulnerable if the buffer is too small, but one that is too large
would be unnecessarily costly.
• A capital requirement could increase MMF industry concentration because provision
of initial capital would be a substantial burden for some asset managers and could
cause them to exit the industry. In addition, such a requirement may favor bank-
sponsored funds.
Additional considerations:
• The costs of financing a capital buffer would be borne by MMF sponsors and
investors, and these costs could result in a reduction in the size of the prime and tax-
exempt MMF sectors. As noted above, a reduction in the size of these MMFs could
affect the resilience and functioning of short-term funding markets in a variety of
ways.
I. Require Liquidity Exchange Bank Membership
To provide a liquidity backstop during periods of market stress, prime and tax-exempt
MMFs could be required to be members of a private liquidity exchange bank. The LEB would be
a chartered bank. Under one LEB proposal, MMF members and their sponsors would capitalize
the LEB through initial contributions and ongoing commitment fees. During times of market
stress, the LEB would purchase eligible assets from MMFs that need cash, up to a maximum
amount per fund. The LEB would not be intended to provide credit support.
32
Potential benefits:
• The existence of a liquidity backstop provided by an LEB could diminish investors’
incentives to run.
• An LEB would commit private resources, including bank capital, ex ante to provide
liquidity to MMFs. This framework could partially internalize the costs of liquidity
protection for the MMF industry and reduce distortions that can arise from an
expectation of official sector support in times of stress.
• Chartered banks generally have access to Federal Reserve liquidity through the
discount window, although the duration and extent of access is not guaranteed. To the
extent that the LEB has access to the discount window, that access may further
mitigate liquidity pressures on MMFs and reduce the likelihood of fire sales.
• Pooling liquidity resources for MMFs may offer efficiency gains. An LEB would
provide liquidity to MMFs that need it, rather than requiring each MMF to hold
liquidity separately.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• Access to the LEB backstop during times of market stress, without further
consideration of risk management measures, could have moral hazard effects that
motivate some funds to take greater risks in the less-liquid parts of their portfolios.
• The LEB, which would not provide traditional banking services, is not intended to
operate as a commercial bank, and commercial banks are not organized to buy assets
from entities facing financial difficulties. As such, it is unclear whether such an entity
would be able to obtain a banking charter.
• Access to the discount window by the LEB is not guaranteed, particularly in the size
and term that may be needed to provide material liquidity support to MMFs under
stress.
• To the extent that liquidity provided by the Federal Reserve exceeds what is provided
to a typical commercial bank, the LEB would not be significantly different from other
types of historical official sector support.
• As a bank, the LEB would be subject to supervision and regulation, including
restrictions on transactions with affiliate funds.
45
In addition, investors in the LEB
may themselves become bank holding companies. If an investor became a bank
holding company, it would be subject to consolidated supervision and regulation, and
would be required to serve as a source of strength to the LEB.
46
• The LEB would need significant capital to both be in a position to provide
meaningful liquidity for MMFs in stress events and be seen as a credible liquidity
backstop. Building adequate capacity from MMF income could take several years,
particularly in a low interest rate environment. Moreover, the need to comply with
applicable leverage-based capital requirements on a continuous basis – even during
45
12 U.S.C. 371c; 12 CFR 223.
46
12 U.S.C. 1841 et seq.
33
periods of peak usage under stress – could render the LEB’s lending capacity
insufficiently robust in extremis.
• News that an LEB is running out of capacity could accelerate runs.
• Requiring fund sponsors to provide initial capital for an LEB would likely favor large
and bank-affiliated sponsors and could cause some others to exit the industry, thus
increasing industry concentration.
• Administering an LEB may raise complex governance and fairness concerns,
particularly in times of stress.
Additional considerations:
• Requiring membership in an LEB likely would impose a cost on sponsors and reduce
yields for investors, both of which could result in a reduction in the size of the prime
and tax-exempt MMF sectors. As noted above, a reduction in the size of these MMFs
could affect the resilience and functioning of short-term funding markets in a variety
of ways.
J. New Requirements Governing Sponsor Support
In times of market stress, sponsor support has been a tool for stabilizing MMF share
prices and providing liquidity. Support of funds was relatively common during the 2008 financial
crisis as a number of MMF sponsors purchased large amounts of portfolio securities from their
MMFs or provided capital support to their MMFs.
47
However, the discretionary nature of
sponsor support contributes to uncertainty about who will bear risks in periods of stress,
including when there is a run on a MMF. Moreover, the inability of one sponsor to provide
support for a distressed fund accelerated the run on MMFs in September 2008. Currently,
sponsors may provide support to MMFs under certain conditions established by rule 17a-9 under
the Act, and must make public disclosure of any “financial support” to increase transparency
about sponsor involvement.
48
However, bank sponsors are subject to limits on transactions with
affiliates under section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act. In March, the Federal Reserve, in
conjunction with the FDIC and OCC, provided temporary relief from these restrictions.
49
The
SEC staff also issued a temporary no-action letter in March to permit the purchase of certain
47
See SEC 2014 Reforms, at paragraph accompanying footnote 53; 2010 PWG Report. A sponsor may also
provide support when the fund is not under stress. As one example, a sponsor may provide support in a
form of capital contribution to maintain a fund’s stable NAV when liquidating a fund that experienced
small losses as assets matured.
48
See Investment Company Act rule 17a-9 [17 CFR 270.17a-9]; SEC Form N-CR, Part C; and SEC Form N-
MFP, Item C.18.
49
See Letters dated March 17, 2020, available at
https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/legalinterpretations/fedreserseactint20200317.pdf.
34
MMF securities by an affiliate where reliance on rule 17a-9 could conflict with sections 23A and
23B of the Federal Reserve Act.
50
A regulatory framework governing sponsor support could clarify who bears MMF risks
by establishing when a sponsor would be required to provide support.
51
Potential benefits:
• Explicit sponsor support, similar to a capital buffer, would commit private resources
ex ante to absorb losses, mitigate risks to MMF shareholders, and reduce their
incentives to redeem in a stress event.
• Similar to a capital buffer financed by MMF sponsors, explicit sponsor support could
strengthen sponsors’ incentives to reduce portfolio risks.
Potential drawbacks, limitations, and challenges:
• Making sponsor support for MMFs explicit would favor bank-sponsored funds and
would likely increase MMF industry concentration.
• Making support explicit would require new official sector oversight to ensure that
sponsors have resources to provide support.
Additional considerations:
• Formalizing sponsor support would impose an expected cost on sponsors and likely
would cause them to charge higher fees to investors, which could lead to a reduction
in the size of the prime and tax-exempt MMF sectors. At the same time, explicit
support could boost demand for these funds by making them less risky. As noted
above, changes in the size of these MMFs could affect the resilience and functioning
of short-term funding markets in a variety of ways.
50
See Letter to Susan Olson, Investment Company Institute (March 19, 2020), available at
https://www.sec.gov/investment/investment-company-institute-031920-17a.
51
This reform could also include changes to obviate the need for future SEC staff no-action letters relating to
the interaction of rule 17a-9 and certain banking law provisions, which may provide more certainty with
respect to sponsor support.
