Saxo Bank is offering full digital access to mainland China bonds through a simple ‘click to trade’ functionality, in what it says is a first in the market.

The Danish investment bank adds that qualified institutional clients can now access a variety of China bonds through its simple trading process, which streamlines access to a market that has historically been complicated and cumbersome for foreign investors.

“Chinese securities are an increasingly important part of an international investors’ portfolio, as demonstrated by record inflows into Chinese stocks in January this year, as well as strong international inflows into Chinese bonds in 2018,” commented Fan Xu, CEO of Greater China, Saxo Bank.

“At the same time, Chinese government bonds emerged among the best-performing government bonds of 2018. We are therefore proud to be the first to deliver full digital access to Chinese bonds to help our clients build strong diversified investment portfolios.

“Saxo offers access to a universe of over 5,000 bonds, including more than 3,400 developed-market and over 1,600 emerging-market bonds. Each bond order is directed to an optimised dealer auction which is selected from up to 40 of the largest bond liquidity providers, ensuring higher speed of execution and tighter pricing.”

Connectivity

Connectivity is enabled via the Hong Kong based Bond Connect mechanism, a mutual bond access programme launched in 2017 that enable   overseas and Mainland China investors to trade in each other's bond markets.

China’s bond market is among the world’s largest at US$12 trillion, and Chinese bonds are increasingly added to global indices. In line with People’s Bank of China (PBoC) regulations, qualified institutional investors will have access to 127 China bonds with the Chinese yuan (CNH) as a settlement currency.