China

Singapore Exchange (SGX) is looking to replicate the success of companies CME Group, Deutsche Bourse and the London Stock Exchange Group in evolving the indexing business, as passive investing gains popularity in Asia.

The Islamic finance market is looking to welcome its first Chinese participant after Country Garden Holdings this week announced plans to issue a Murabahah sukuk. But the property developer’s currency of choice — the ringgit — suggests that plenty of work is needed for sukuk to gain traction in north Asia, writes Rev Hui.

Duo leads Tata Chem’s sterling financing — ONGC to net $1.775bn from four — Viettel Cambodia beams $50m loan — Minsheng Leasing trims borrowing to $150m

A €600m ($673m) fundraising for a unit of China National Chemical Corp has gone into general syndication, following a senior phase where just two banks came on board. The lacklustre demand has caused the leads to increase the fees on offer to help drum up more interest.

China gave a clear signal of its ambitions for the long awaited Cross-Border Interbank Payment System by launching it with a series of debut transactions by China and international banks in at least three different continents. CIPS, which was up and running on October 8, is expected to play a key role in the next stage of RMB internationalisation.

The budding Chinese securitization market has taken another step forward with the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (Nafmii) rolling out the first disclosure framework for consumer loan ABS.

Standard Chartered’s latest Renminbi Globalisation Index (RGI) showed a 9.4% month on month boost to 2,312 in August from a revised 2,113 in July. The rise was mainly due a surge in CNH foreign exchange turnover caused by the increased currency volatility since the RMB fixing reform.

ICBCIL Finance, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICBC, has picked banks to work on its return to the international bond market, in what would only be its second dollar deal.

People’s Bank of China (PBoC) named Bank of China Zambia branch (BoC Zambia) as the latest RMB clearing bank, the central bank said in a statement on 30 September.

China held a series of high level government meetings with the UK and France in September. One of the most publicised pieces of news was the London’s plan for a Stock Connect but perhaps just as important are a number of moves by Euronext to facilitate Chinese investment on its platforms and develop new RMB products.

The days of the renminbi as a stable currency with high investment yields are gone, but this is good in the long run for banks that want to have a healthier CNH balance sheet, says Andrew Fung, executive director and head of global banking and markets at Hang Seng Bank.

Four banks have launched a €600m ($673m) financing for China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) into general syndication, after bringing on board two lenders during the senior phase.