BEIJING – China’s central bank is expanding its monetary policy toolkit to get a better handle on liquidity in the financial system as it seeks to add more levers for fine-tuning the economy.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will conduct so-called outright reverse repurchase agreements with primary dealers monthly for a timeframe of no more than a year, according to a statement Oct 28.
The move is aimed at maintaining a reasonable level of liquidity in the banking system and enriching its toolkit for monetary policy, the PBOC said.
A repo is a form of short-term borrowing used in money markets, which involve the purchase of a security with an agreement to sell it back at a specific date. Here, the securities will include sovereign bonds, local government notes and corporate debt, the PBOC said.
The central bank has been revamping its policy framework in a shift that could allow it to operate more like global peers and influence market borrowing costs more effectively.
It has been downplaying the role of the medium-term lending facility as a key rate while transitioning to using seven-day reverse repo as the main policy lever to deliver a clearer signal, with the new operations likely to sit between the two.
The new tool is likely to provide a longer-term liquidity injection to the interbank market and could help with an expected increase in bond issuance from China, according to Becky Liu, head of China macro strategy at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong.
“Outright repo has an underlying exchange of bonds. so banks can hopefully free up longer term liquidity,” she said. “The PBOC can prepare banks to facilitate a rise of government bond issuance ahead.”
Money market gauges have been flashing signs that China’s banks and non-bank financial institutions remain under
