BlackRock's Q2 Earnings were released Friday, and the conference call (see Seeking Alpha transcript) discussed money markets a number of times. CFO Gary Shedlin comments, "BlackRock's cash management platform crossed $600 billion of AUM during the quarter driven by $24 billion of net inflows. A significant portion of that growth was driven by corporate clients who acted to reinforce balance sheets and strengthen liquidity in the current environment, and we also witnessed strong flows back into institutional prime funds." He explains, "On the fee waiver point, as I mentioned in my initial calls, we haven't yet waived any fees. But in the past, when our clients have struggled with low rates, and subject to market conditions, we have used yield-support waivers. They typically come into play when yields fall below management fees. We typically share them with our distribution partners. And previously in other periods of time, we've tried to maintain yield floors of somewhere around 1 to 3 basis points.... While timing obviously depends on a lot of things, depending on how quickly portfolios grow, how quickly portfolios turn over, we haven't really come to that. As an example, our Fed fund gross yield today is roughly around 26 basis points. That's in excess of the management fee which is closer to 17 basis points.... Looking at our crystal ball, that will probably start to hit us in August or September. But I would say a couple of things as you think about that. If we do choose to implement yield support waivers, we do anticipate that about 40% to 50% of those would be shared with our distributors, so that lessens the bottom line impact for us. And we would also anticipate that the primary impact would be on U.S. government funds which represents today about 50% of our overall -- our cash business.... We've been seeing increasing flows into prime funds. I think as long as those are operating and with the Fed currently providing some secondary market support there, we do think we'll continue to see people migrate out of government funds and into those prime vehicles, which we don't anticipate to be impacted by fee waivers." Fink adds, "Clients turned to our scaled cash management platform for liquidity and safety, driving $77 billion of inflows in the first half of this year.... Last year, when we launched our Liquid Environmentally Aware Fund or LEAF strategy, it was the first money market fund to incorporate ESG. In 1 year, it has grown to $13 billion."

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