기업어음(CP)의 이슈와 개선방안에 관한 법적 연구

Abstract

Commercial paper plays an important role in a short-term money market as a mean of financing for a firm. However, unlike equity and bond, it does not have the obligation of disclosure as it is issued based on the Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes Act which leads to some issues such as uncertainty of information, avoidance of public offering regulatory, opacity of market structure, and inefficiency of physical issuing. To extend the range of securitization of CP in the Capital Market Act with the purpose of reinforcing investor protection, regulations on issuance of CP have dramatically been relaxed. Yet it led to such adverse effects that enlarged regulatory arbitrage between CP and corporate bond. To improve opacity and inefficiency of CP, electronic short-term bond has been introduced in January 2013 which can replace CP with the same economic purpose. However, at this point after a year with this new system, regulatory arbitrage still exists between CP and electronic short-term bond that needs to be improved. CP and electronic short-term bond are substitute goods which have similar economic functions. For stable and efficient management of short-term money market and the improvement of opacity and inefficiency of CP, control on the demand of CP as well as vitalization of electronic short-term bond is necessary. In order to do so, first, regulatory arbitrage between CP and corporate bond needs to be prevented. Second, regulatory arbitrage between CP and electronic short-term bond should be reduced. Third, when issuing CP or other debenture, a legal basis upon the credit information law needs to be arranged to allow even non-deposit CP to make public and share the issuance information for accurate credit evaluation. Fourth, as for public enterprises established based on special act, electronic short-term bond should be obligatory both direct and indirect for transparency of public enterprise debt and revitalization of electronic short-term bond. Fifth, to handle liquidity risk due to shortened maturity of electronic short-term bond, introduction of back-up line of credit involving commercial bank can be considered to cope with the temporary lack of liquidity with the issuance of electronic short-term bond. In this case, incentives such as upgrading credit rating can be given like the United States.