SINGAPORE, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced on Friday that it has launched a Singapore-dollar (SGD) Credit Rating Grant to encourage issuers at the SGD bond market to issue rated bonds.
According to a press release on MAS website, the Grant will, over a five-year period, help issuers offset the associated costs.
Qualifying domestic and foreign issuers of SGD bonds who obtain credit ratings from an international credit rating agency will be able to claim up to 100 percent of their credit rating expenses, subject to a funding cap of 400,000 Singapore dollars(290,508 U.S. dollars) per issuer.
MAS said greater availability of credit ratings in the domestic bond market will help to further improve market transparency, by providing timely and independent assessments of the credit worthiness of issuers throughout the life of a bond.
It said credit ratings can also benefit bond issuers, as it will allow the issuers that are currently unrated and rely mainly on the same pool of domestic investors, to attract a broader and more diverse investor base, including international institutional investors.
Currently, only about half of the outstanding volume of SGD bonds are rated, according to the authority.
