SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's issuance of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) doubled in the third quarter as the government raised the supply of low-rate loans for ordinary people, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
The sale of MBS, issued by the state-run Korea Housing Finance Corp. to securitize home-backed loans, amounted to 10.6 trillion won (9.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the July-September quarter, up from 5.3 trillion won (4.7 billion U.S. dollars) tallied in the same quarter of last year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The MBS issuance rose sharply as the government offered more low-rate mortgage loans for ordinary people from the third quarter of last year.
The country's central bank slashed its target rate by 25 basis points to an all-time low of 0.50 percent in May, after cutting the rate by 50 basis points in March. The rate cut lowered debt-servicing burden for households.
The issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS), including MBS, reached 18.7 trillion won (16.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter, almost doubling 9.6 trillion won (8.5 billion U.S. dollars) tallied a year earlier.
The ABS issuance by financial firms more than doubled to 5.1 trillion won (4.5 billion U.S. dollars), and the ABS sale by industrial companies grew 26.4 percent to 3.0 trillion won (2.7 billion U.S. dollars).
The primary collateralized bond obligations (P-CBO), issued by securities firms to securitize corporate bonds, rose to 2.2 trillion won (2.0 billion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter, nearly quadrupling compared to a year earlier. Enditem
