Two very different debt capital markets deals – one recently completed in Asia, the other earlier this summer in Europe – show how new financial technology is set to transform the primary markets. That is slowly, methodically and by concentrating on the pain points in the process, rather than on grand visions of re-inventing the ways in which lenders allocate funding to borrowers.
Both deals were small private placements. The most recent was a HK$100 million ($12.5 million) certificate of deposit (CD) issued by the Hong Kong branch of China Construction Bank with Crédit Agricole CIB as the dealer.
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Raja Palaniappan, |
This was the first CD to be issued digitally with all documentation automatically and electronically generated. The entire issuance was managed on Origin, a digital platform that connects frequent borrowers and dealers in the debt markets.
Origin is more renowned as the provider of a market place for regular issuers of private placements off European medium-term note programmes – supranationals, quasi sovereigns, agencies and banks – to display indicated terms that they are prepared to pay at various maturities to dealers who then sound out investors willing to lend.
