The Korea Herald

피터빈트

Asset-backed securities issuance falls 27% in 2016

By KH디지털2

Published : Jan. 24, 2017 - 10:53

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The issuance of asset-backed securities in South Korea dropped sharply last year, affected by the government's policy measure to slow the growth of household debt, data showed Tuesday.

The amount of ABS issued in 2016 totaled 60.7 trillion won ($52.2 billion), down 26.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.

(Yonhap) (Yonhap)

The decline came as the state-funded Korea Housing Finance Corp. scaled down its issuance of mortgage-backed securities by 36.7 percent on-year to 35.3 trillion won.

In 2015, the KHFC released a mountain of MBS to support the government-led new mortgage loan program, called "Relief Loans,"

meant to promote fixed-rate borrowing and regular debt payments with no grace period.

"A huge amount of MBS based on Relief Loans was issued temporarily in 2015," an FSS official said. "There was a base effect from that."

ABS issued by financial companies also shrank 19.4 percent on-year to 15.3 trillion won in 2016, while that of nonfinancial ones rose 23.1 percent to 10.1 trillion won.

Loans-backed ABS totaled 38.8 trillion won during the period, down 37 percent from 2015, but ABS backed by accounts receivable climbed 10.6 percent to 19.5 trillion won. (Yonhap)