Guidelines
It is AFMA’s policy to comply with competition law and to put in place procedures to ensure compliance with the law. AFMA will not participate in nor facilitate any activity or agreement which is contrary to competition law rules. In order to assist understanding and compliance AFMA has a Competition Law Policy and Guidance. The purpose of the document is to set out AFMA’s policy on competition law issues and assist with guidance to AFMA staff and members on conforming with competition law.
The Swaps Reference Price Transaction Guidelines apply to market participants in the Australian swaps market and set out certain expected behaviours of wholesale market participants that enter into a type of transaction common in the swaps market known as a reference price transaction (RPT).
The AFMA Debt Trading Guidelines have general application to trading participants in the Australian debt market. The smooth and efficient functioning of debt instrument markets rely on the integrity, honesty, good faith, and mutual trust shown by all participants. It is important that both buyers and sellers promote market liquidity. Among other reasons, market liquidity allows benchmark rates to be determined. These Guidelines direct trading participants to behave in a manner that is consistent with supporting market liquidity and have sound organisational arrangements in place to oversee debt trading activities.
These Guidelines are supplemental to the AFMA Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct and are designed to provide a common understanding around how organisations manage contributions of rates used in the calculation of financial benchmarks.
These guidelines relate to the handling of confidential information and the conduct of market soundings specifically for equity capital market transactions occurring in Australia.
These guidelines are intended to support the product development and distribution process within firms that issue retail structured financial products by clarifying the respective roles and responsibilities of the various parties involved in a manner that promotes the fair treatment of individual investors.
Trade matching has evolved as a means by which the risks encountered in the repo markets can be reduced, particularly operational risk. When practiced, trade matching significantly reduces settlement delays and failures, and facilitates best-practice credit and operational risk management. These guidelines describe repo trade matching best practice, and by clarifying the responsibilities of the various parties involved in repo transactions they are designed to reduce, to the maximum extent possible, settlement delays and failures.
This Practice Guide has been designed to assist member firms to design and implement effective education and training programs for their employees in relation to matters of individual and company conduct in the financial markets. The Guide sets out the principles that underpin an effective training program for employees in relation to conduct.
The AFMA Debt Capital Market Primary Market Guidelines are directed to institutional debt syndication distributions. These guidelines are relevant to primary market issuance practice and should be read in conjunction with the Debt Capital Market Primary Market Conventions. They incorporate the earlier Handling Inside Information & Market Soundings Guidelines for Institutional Debt Capital Markets, an archive copy of which can be found here.
AFMA has published a statement providing clarity around the guidance available to the Australian market with respect to pre-hedging practices.
The AFMA Consequence Management Standard sets out Principles to guide member firms in the design and implementation of a consequence management policy for their employees. Member firms are expected to reflect the Principles in the consequence management policy they apply to AFMA-accredited employees in relation to Code of Conduct matters.