On May 21, China's Industrial Bank (CIB) successfully executed the first sci-tech innovation bond lending transaction on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE). This transaction marks the SZSE's inaugural bond lending deal with sci-tech innovation bonds as the underlying assets, effectively enhancing the liquidity of such bonds and strengthening financial services' support for sci-tech innovation.
On May 7, the People's Bank of China and the China Securities Regulatory Commission jointly issued an announcement on supporting the issuance of sci-tech innovation bonds, guiding bond market funds to invest early, small, long-term, and in hard-tech sectors. The SZSE has refined the mechanism for sci-tech innovation bonds across issuance, trading, and supporting measures. It has included eligible sci-tech innovation bonds in the general pledged repo collateral pool and supported bond lending transactions with them as underlying assets, continuously improving bond liquidity, attractiveness, and trading activity to drive sustained growth in sci-tech innovation bond issuance.
CIB fully leveraged its “trading ecosystem” advantage by completing a bond lending transaction with GF Securities on the very first day when sci-tech innovation bonds became eligible for lending, effectively boosting market vitality. “The bank will closely follow policy developments to help expand sci-tech innovation bond investors' asset utilization scope and business frameworks, thereby lowering financing costs for sci-tech enterprises,” said an executive from CIB's Treasury Operations Center.