India and Korea are showing signs of following Taiwan's lead and allowing an onshore credit market. "Almost every country is moving in the right direction," said Simon Chiu, Asian head of credit trading at JPMorgan in Hong Kong. He expects local credit derivative markets to develop over the course of next year. "There's a lot of potential," he said.
Domestic Korean banks, including Korea Development Bank and Kookmin Bank, are expecting the regulator to sign off on individual onshore credit derivatives transactions early next year with a blanket approval by year-end (DW, 12/17). "We're looking at this for next year," said Man Ho Yoon, general manager of the financial engineering department at the Korea Development Bank in Seoul.
The Indian regulators have been opening up new markets throughout last year and also eased the trading rules on domestic futures positions, which boosted the over-the-counter derivatives market in general because it allowed more hedging activity. Justin Kennedy, managing director in Asia-Pacific equity derivatives at Citigroup in Hong Kong, championed the move at the time (DW, 9/24).
