By Shahid Iqbal
KARACHI: Banks and Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) have been allowed to invest in commercial papers to help the corporate sector to get short-term financing to overcome the liquidity problem.
In order to develop and broaden the money market and also to provide an additional financial instrument to investors, it is considered desirable to allow highly rated companies to diversify their sources of short-term financing by issue of commercial paper (CP) as an instrument of redeemable capital.
The State Bank on Saturday issued a circular introducing amendment in the Guidelines of Commercial Papers.
‘The banks and DFIs may make investment in Commercial Paper (CP) as per policy approved by their board of directors and keeping in view the bank’s and DFI’s equity,’ said the SBP circular.
Earlier, banks and DFIs interested in investing in CP were required to obtain one time prior approval from SBP for commencing or undertaking such activity.
According to the guidelines the equity of a company issuing a commercial paper should not be less than Rs100 million.
The State Bank also wants to ensure that the issuer company has obtained the credit rating from a rating agency. The minimum credit rating of the issuer should be ‘A-’ (medium to long-term) and ‘A2’ (short-term).
The SBP said at the time of issue of commercial paper, the company will ensure that the rating is current and not more than two months old.
‘The bank or DFI would ensure that the risks associated with investment in CPs are in line with their risk taking capacity and appropriate measures have been taken to mitigate these risks,’ said the circular.
The commercial paper will be issued for maturities between 30 days and one year from the date of subscription. The minimum size of the issue of a commercial paper will not be less than Rs10 million.
Banking analysts said the free involvement of banks and DFIs for investing in the commercial papers would also help banks as they are facing falling credit growth.
Banks have been investing heavily in the Treasury bills since the beginning of the fiscal year that sharply hurt their lending trend resulting into sharp fall in credit growth.
Along with the Treasury bills, the government was the real borrower from the banks as it recenly borrowed to retire the circular debt of the oil companies. The government borrowed Rs80 billion through Term Finance Certificates to retire the circular debt.
However, the borrowing by the corporate sector has alarminlgy fallen during the first nine months of the current fiscal as was obvious from the State Bank report that private sector credit growth fell by 48 per cent. (Dawn)
KARACHI: Banks and Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) have been allowed to invest in commercial papers to help the corporate sector to get short-term financing to overcome the liquidity problem.
In order to develop and broaden the money market and also to provide an additional financial instrument to investors, it is considered desirable to allow highly rated companies to diversify their sources of short-term financing by issue of commercial paper (CP) as an instrument of redeemable capital.
The State Bank on Saturday issued a circular introducing amendment in the Guidelines of Commercial Papers.
‘The banks and DFIs may make investment in Commercial Paper (CP) as per policy approved by their board of directors and keeping in view the bank’s and DFI’s equity,’ said the SBP circular.
Earlier, banks and DFIs interested in investing in CP were required to obtain one time prior approval from SBP for commencing or undertaking such activity.
According to the guidelines the equity of a company issuing a commercial paper should not be less than Rs100 million.
The State Bank also wants to ensure that the issuer company has obtained the credit rating from a rating agency. The minimum credit rating of the issuer should be ‘A-’ (medium to long-term) and ‘A2’ (short-term).
The SBP said at the time of issue of commercial paper, the company will ensure that the rating is current and not more than two months old.
‘The bank or DFI would ensure that the risks associated with investment in CPs are in line with their risk taking capacity and appropriate measures have been taken to mitigate these risks,’ said the circular.
The commercial paper will be issued for maturities between 30 days and one year from the date of subscription. The minimum size of the issue of a commercial paper will not be less than Rs10 million.
Banking analysts said the free involvement of banks and DFIs for investing in the commercial papers would also help banks as they are facing falling credit growth.
Banks have been investing heavily in the Treasury bills since the beginning of the fiscal year that sharply hurt their lending trend resulting into sharp fall in credit growth.
Along with the Treasury bills, the government was the real borrower from the banks as it recenly borrowed to retire the circular debt of the oil companies. The government borrowed Rs80 billion through Term Finance Certificates to retire the circular debt.
However, the borrowing by the corporate sector has alarminlgy fallen during the first nine months of the current fiscal as was obvious from the State Bank report that private sector credit growth fell by 48 per cent. (Dawn)
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