The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday adopted a slew of new rules designed to strengthen the regulatory regime governing money market funds.

The SEC says its’ new rules are intended to increase the resilience of money market funds to economic stresses and reduce the risks of runs on the funds by tightening the maturity and credit quality standards and imposing new liquidity requirements.

In particular, the new rules require money market funds to have a minimum percentage of their assets in highly liquid securities so that those assets can be readily converted to cash to pay redemptions (a daily liquidity requirement of at least 10%, and a weekly requirement of 30% of assets). The rules would also further restrict the ability of money market funds to purchase illiquid securities, place new limits on a money market fund’s ability to acquire lower quality securities, and shorten the average maturity limits for money market funds to help limit the exposure of funds to certain risks such as sudden interest rate movements.

Additionally, the new rules require funds to hold sufficiently liquid securities to meet foreseeable redemptions, which will require funds to develop procedures to identify investors whose redemption requests may pose risks for funds. They also require fund managers to stress test their portfolios; and they require money market funds to perform an independent credit analysis of every security they purchase. Funds will have to post their portfolio holdings on the Web each month, and they will have to give detailed portfolio reports to the commission.

There are also new rules dealing with transaction processing. A money market fund’s board of directors will now have the power to suspend redemptions if it decides to liquidate the fund (currently the board must request an order from the SEC to suspend redemptions). And, the new rules expand the ability of affiliates of money market funds to purchase distressed assets from funds in order to protect a fund from losses.

The new rules, which take effect 60 days after their publication, come in response to the financial crisis and the weaknesses it revealed by the Reserve Primary Fund’s “breaking the buck” in September 2008. That event precipitated a full-scale review of the money market fund regulatory regime by the SEC.

“These new rules will have substantial benefits for investors and are an important first step in our efforts to strengthen the money market regime,” said SEC chairman, Mary Schapiro. “These rules will help reduce risks associated with money market funds, so that investor assets are better protected and money market funds can better withstand market crises. The rules also will create a substantial new disclosure regime so that everyone from investors to the SEC itself can better monitor a money market fund’s investments and risk characteristics.”

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association released a statement from asset management group managing director, Tim Cameron, endorsing the new rules. “We support today’s decision by the SEC to adopt new rules that foster greater protections for mutual fund shareholders. SIFMA, led by its buy-side member firms which participate in the AMG, will engage with market participants to help implement these enhanced requirements,” he said.

IE