China's central bank on Friday launched a special re-lending facility to guide banks to provide loans to listed companies and their major shareholders for buybacks and increasing shareholdings.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) announced the decision last month to set up the re-lending facility and the Securities, Funds and Insurance Companies Swap Facility (SFISF) as part of efforts to support the healthy and steady development of the capital market.
Starting from Friday, 21 national financial institutions can issue relevant loans to qualified listed companies and major shareholders, and apply to the PBOC for re-lending in the first month of the next quarter. For loans that meet the requirements, the PBOC will provide re-lending support at 100 percent of the loan principal.
The initial re-lending scale is 300 billion yuan at an interest rate of 1.75 percent. The facility can be available to various types of companies regardless of their ownership, according to the central bank.
For the SFISF which also went into operation on Friday, the central bank said the tool allows eligible securities, funds and insurance companies to use their assets including bonds, stock ETFs and holdings in constituents of the CSI 300 Index as collateral in exchange for highly liquid assets such as treasury bonds and central bank bills.
So far, a total of 20 securities and funds companies have been approved to participate in the SFISF operation.
China's central bank launches special re-lending facility to bolster capital market
