Asia Pacific

The Sri Lankan government is readying itself for an international bond, having sent out a request for proposals on Tuesday.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese payment infrastructure firm CIPS Corp on March 25. The organisations will co-operate to improve the China cross-border interbank payment system (CIPS) ahead of the launch of its next development stage in 2017.

The Japan Finance Organisation for Municipalities picked banks on Tuesday for a forthcoming dollar deal, while bankers said that the dollar market is likely to shrug off any announcements from a speech by the US Federal Reserve chair later on Tuesday.

Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Lease Co issued on March 23 ¥5bn ($44.1m) of six month commercial paper with a yield of -0.001%, becoming Japan’s first private company to sell negative yielding debt.

Equitas Holdings has tweaked plans for its potential Rp20bn ($300.3m) IPO, as it works to become the first small finance bank to go public in India.

Oil and gas company KrisEnergy has extended a $111m revolver by one year, according to a release last Friday.

The inevitable set of quarter end data is set to arrive as March winds down. While G3 bond volumes from southeast Asia will be disappointing, there are plenty of other reasons to be positive.

Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group has increased the size of its latest borrowing to $3.5bn from $2.5bn.

Adani Transmission has kicked off a series of investor meetings in Asia, Europe and the US to test appetite for an offshore rupee denominated note or Masala bond.

The National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (Nafmii) has wrapped up a consultation on the securitization of non-performing loans (NPLs), paving the way for the asset class to materialise.

Indonesian gas-to-power specialist MAXpower Group is looking to rejig terms on a $222m five year syndicated loan sealed in 2015.

The Yangon Stock Exchange opened last Friday to a fervent day of trading with the debut listed stock, First Myanmar Investment, jumping about 19% on the first day.