In 2023, financial institutions issued an additional $13 billion bonds y-o-y, with a corresponding 31.8 percentage point (ppt) increase in the proportion of Singapore dollar issuances by financial institutions compared to 2022.
MAS attributes this in part to local banks’ increased interest and capacity amid stronger earnings from their lending businesses. This, together with issuance from corporations, offset the $7.4 billion y-o-y decline in statutory board issuance.
Non-Singapore dollar bond issuance volume grew $64 billion y-o-y, and the share of non-Singapore dollar bond issuances rose 31 ppts to 41.8%.
MAS says this was driven by an increase in issuance volumes from global corporations based in Singapore. For example, Pfizer Investment Enterprises announced a $31 billion multi-tranche issue in the first half of 2023.
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“Financial institutions continued to tap into our multi currency bond market and raised funding in various currencies such as US dollar, Australian dollar, pound sterling, Hong Kong dollar and euro, to support their business needs,” says MAS.
Between 2004 and 2023, issuance volumes in Singapore’s foreign currency bond market grew at a CAGR of about 10%, higher than the global bond market’s growth of 1%.
MAS attributes its strength as a fundraising centre to its full accessibility to the bond market to all issuers and investors, strong investor demand from asset and fund managers in Singapore, and the well-developed ecosystem of key debt capital market teams and professional service providers in Singapore.
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Read more about MAS's annual report for FY2023/24:
- MAS swings back from two years of losses with $3.8 bil net profit in FY2023/24
- MAS announces additional $100 mil funding for FIs pursuing AI, quantum projects
- S'pore's net AUM inflows falls to $193 bil in 2023, but AUM grows to $5.4 tril
- Wait time for tax incentive applications to be shortened, banks’ AML rules to be standardised: MAS
- S’pore growth ‘should strengthen this year’: MAS
