Our Policies
Our policies are as listed below:
Personal Investment and Trading of Securities Policy
This Policy serves to establish a standard of conduct for MARC’s employees and non-employees on the dealings in personal investment and trading of securities.
As part of MARC’s rating process, issuers and other parties often share material non-public information with MARC’s employees. In addition, a rating action or other public announcement may have an effect on the price of an issuer’s securities or securities not directly related to that issuer. Accordingly, this Policy aims to prevent any real or apparent conflicts of interest which may be used by MARC’s employees or non-employees for their own direct or indirect personal gain.
Analytic Chinese Wall Policy
The aim of the Analytic Chinese Wall Policy is to ensure that Ratings Analysts have the necessary independence to express their respective opinions free from the improper influence of other employees and third parties and from financial and commercial considertions. This Policy also aims to protect the confidentiality of information given to Ratings employees in connection with the rating process.
Code of Conduct
MARC’s Code of Conduct sets forth standards of behaviour for MARC’s employees regarding the ethical conduct of its business. This Code of Conduct (Code) incorporates regulatory requirements set out in the Guidelines on Registration of Credit Rating Agencies issued by the Securities Commission of Malaysia (SC) and to comply with Section 17A of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (Amendment) Act 2018. It also reflects substantial adherence to the International Organisation of Securities Commission (IOSCO) Code of Conduct Fundamentals for Credit Rating Agencies (IOSCO Code) published in May 2008. Departures from provisions in the IOSCO Code are outlined in Section IV of this Code. In addition, this Code incorporates provisions from the Best Practices Framework adopted by the Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia ("ACRAA").
Deviations From IOSCO Code
MARC’s Code of Conduct is formed based on principles, codes and best practices set out by IOSCO; and applicable laws and regulations. It is MARC’s continuous commitment to closely monitor our Code of Conduct to ensure that it is always up-to-date in an unending effort to safeguard investors’ interests.
In as much as our principle objective is to adopt all existing principles, codes and best practices set out by IOSCO, MARC’s current Code of Conduct does not entirely incorporate all principles set out in the current IOSCO Code of Conduct due to unique local practices. However, serious attempts are always made to ensure that the current IOSCO Code of Conduct is adhered to at all times except where it is not practicably viable for local application.
Nonetheless, we genuinely consider such deviations from the current IOSCO Code of Conduct will not compromise investors’ interests as various stringent measures have been applied to ascertain transparency and independence in our credit-rating process.
We have highlighted material deviations of MARC’s Code of Conduct from IOSCO Code of Conduct as listed below:
In consideration of Malaysia’s current structured finance market size and stage of development, MARC practices rotation of analysts on an individual basis rather than changing an entire team to determine initial ratings and subsequent monitoring on a rated subject. It has always been MARC’s top priority to ensure that analysts are rotated as much as our capacity and resources permit to avoid potential conflict of interest.
MARC believes that base cashflow models and assumptions for a particular structured finance transaction should be provided by issuers or arrangers. With such information, investors and subscribers would be able to construct their own cashflow models with first hand information. MARC is currently not prepared to extend existing proprietary models due to liability as well as intellectual property rights considerations. MARC, however, does provide information on the sensitivity of our modeled cashflow to changes in key variables.
The current IOSCO Code of Conduct requires credit rating agencies to differentiate the rating of structured finance products from traditional corporate bond ratings, preferably via different rating symbols, and to disclose how such differentiation functions. MARC uses the same rating scale and symbols for structured finance products as well as traditional corporate bonds.
Business Continuity Management Policy
This policy is designed to outline the procedures, processes and systems necessary to resume or restore the business operation of MARC as swiftly and smoothly as possible. The purpose of this policy is to prepare MARC to deal with disaster recovery in the event of major and extended services outages caused by factors beyond the organisation’s control such as natural disasters and man-made events and to restore services to the widest extent possible in a minimum time frame. This BCP also deals with succession planning and development at the management level arising from resignations, death or departure of senior management. The proper implementation of BCP will ensure the survival of the organisation, protect corporate assets, minimise financial loss and the loss of customers in the event of a disaster or when facing succession issues.
MARC Group's Compliance Framework
This compliance framework serves to provide an explicit commitment to MARC’s stakeholders, including our regulator, of the organisation’s commitment to regulatory compliance as well as compliance with our core values, internal policies and procedures and code of conduct. The compliance framework is designed with the aim to minimise compliance risks and also to instill a compliance culture, based on preventing, detecting and responding to compliance issues.