Australia’s prudential regulator also loosened
its capital requirements last month to enable
banks to lend more freely and boost credit flow.
Still, S&P warned that “a more severe and
longer lasting downturn”, potentially due to a
sharp fall in property prices and a materially
weaker economic outlook, would trigger
downgrades for banks.Sebi
Shorter listing timetable for IPOs deferredThe Securities and Exchange Board of India has
deferred the implementation of a shorter listing
timetable for IPOs because of the disruption
caused by the coronavirus pandemic and
domestic lockdown.
Sebi has put on hold plans to shorten the lag
between the closing of an IPO and the listing of the
securities to three days (T+3), from six at present.
The rule was to come into effect on April 1.
“Taking into account that introducing any new
changes under the prevailing circumstances- where staff at the stakeholders are sparsely
populated – may not be workable, it has been
decided to continue with the current phase-II till
further notice,” Sebi said in a statement.
The gap between the issue closure and listing
was cut to six days from 12 in 2015.
Equity capital markets activity has come to a
halt after India went into a 21-day nationwide
lockdown on March 25, although the stock
exchanges are still open.
The last Indian IPO was SBI Cards and Payment
Services’ Rs103bn (US$1.4bn) issue in early
March.Bank of Thailand
Mutual fund facility expandedThailand’s central bank has expanded the scope
of a facility set up to provide liquidity to mutual
funds following a wave of redemptions amid the
coronavirus pandemic.
The Bank of Thailand said last Monday that the
facility would now cover banks’ buying of assets
of mutual funds such as corporate debt and
would also be extended to closed mutual funds.
On March 22, the BOT, along with the Finance
Ministry and the Securities and ExchangeCommission, announced the creation of the
mutual fund liquidity facility after some fixed-
income mutual funds halted redemptions
following a major sell-off.
The BOT said that it would allow commercial
banks that purchase investment units of
impacted mutual funds to use the underlying
unit trusts as collateral for liquidity.
The central bank also announced that day
the creation of a Bt70–Bt100bn (US$2.14bn–
$3.05bn) corporate bond stabilisation fund to
invest in debt issued by corporates for those that
cannot roll over their maturing bonds.
It said that the Thai Bankers’ Association, the
Government Savings Bank, the Government
Pension Fund as well as several Thai insurers
would participate in the stabilisation fund.
Thailand also recently revised its circuit-breaker
rules following the coronavirus outbreak. New
rules that have been put in place until June 30
will see an 8% drop in the SET index trigger a
30-minute trading halt versus 10% previously.
A 15% fall, which is a new trigger, will initiate a
30-minute halt, while a 20% plunge will still see
trading halted for an hour, as before.20 International Financing Review Asia April 4 2020People
&Markets
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