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SCMP Reporter

THOSE who have formed the impression that the derivatives markets are populated with blindfolded company directors being led towards a precipice over which Hong Kong itself must soon tumble should take note.

  The Group of 30 (G-30), a US-based group of influential bankers, brokers, industrialists and academics, has found that the need for draconian rules is easing, not strengthening.

  It appears that the developers and pushers of these products, far from behaving like secondhand car dealers, and selling their clients dangerous and uncontrollable rattle-traps, are actually improving their techniques.

  This will come as small comfort to the growing number of shareholders who have found that their directors have been playing with fire - and burned fingers and thumbs.

  In this region this includes investors in two Indonesian groups controlled by conglomerate Sinar Mas-Indah Kiat, which lost US$35 million, and Tjiwi Kimia, which found itself $12.5 million down after derivatives plays went wrong.

  That was relatively modest compared with the US$102 million which playing the derivatives market cost Procter & Gamble of the United States in April. The group is now suing Bankers Trust New York.

  Even this is small beer compared with the $1.5 billion which California's Orange county's investment fund has lost this year, thanks partly to its use of leveraged derivatives instruments.

   Nerves will not have been soothed by the requirement imposed on Bankers Trust by the Federal Reserve to tighten its controls on parts of its derivatives business earlier this week.

  It is the leveraged end of the business which will come under closer scrutiny - this is where Procter & Gamble lost its money - and the bank has already paid out $14 million to Gibson's Greetings Cards in compensation for similarly incurred losses.

   As controls are tightened and standards raised, managers of derivatives dealers are apparently better informed of the risks that are run in this market.

  Or so the G-30 has found in a survey which it undertook as a follow-up to its crucial investigation last year into derivatives trading.

  Its latest survey concludes that banks, investment houses and brokers have found that its earlier recommendations were useful and relevant in managing derivatives.

  No doubt trembling under the threat of legal action or of finding their capital wiped out by loose cannons in the dealing rooms, banks and investment houses have begun to use a whole range of tests and controls to ensure that their capital is not put at risk in derivatives.

  Senior management is taking a much closer interest in the activities of the rocket scientists and their often complicated and volatile inventions.

  But if the practitioners are better informed and more aware of the risk involved, it seems that those who actually buy and use the products are still failing to apply adequate safeguards.

  Only a tiny minority of institutions and corporations actually used the sophisticated techniques which can emphasise management and reduce the risks of derivatives products.

  The overall effect of the survey, the G-30 hopes, will be to ward off the heavy hand of regulators who could stifle the growth of the business by wrapping it in a suffocating list of rules.

  The main lesson from the G-30's recommendations is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, which can be leveraged - just like derivatives instruments.

  If the practitioners are becoming more aware of their own risk, and how to control it, they should be scrupulous about ensuring that the same amount of awareness exists among their customers. The 'know your client' rule has never been more applicable.

   The final safeguard, however, lies with the users. They must learn that derivatives are not long odds bets on a racing certainty from which some handsome extra profits can be accumulated.

  Transparency is the key to this market. All companies and institutions should declare the contracts they have entered into on behalf of shareholders and beneficiaries. All banks and investment houses should reveal the extent of their exposure.

  As Hong Kong moves further into the derivatives market, it might take notice of Deutsche Bank, which has voluntarily agreed to disclose its risk position in its annual report.



Openness needed in derivatives trading