China conducts new central bank bills swap

BEIJING - The People's Bank of China, the central bank, on Wednesday conducted the sixth central bank bills swap (CBS) operation to improve the liquidity of perpetual bonds issued by commercial banks.

The CBS, valued at 6 billion yuan ($852.9 million), are open to primary dealers for bidding at a fixed rate at 0.1 percent, the central bank said in a statement.

The swap will be due on Feb 27, 2020, the statement showed.

The CBS scheme allows dealers to swap the perpetual bonds they hold for central bank bills, which will effectively boost market demand for perpetual bonds but have a neutral impact on liquidity in the banking system.

Perpetual bonds are fixed-income securities with no maturity date and are not redeemable but pay a steady stream of interests forever.

The People's Bank of China continued to skip reverse repos on Wednesday, citing sufficient liquidity in the banking system.

The overnight Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate, which measures the borrowing cost of China's interbank market, decreased 9 basis points to 2.233 percent Wednesday.