Centre working on backstop facility to deepen bond market

The Centre is finalising the modalities of a “backstop facility” that will be set up to deepen the corporate debt market, a senior government official said on Friday.

The facility, announced in the February Budget, will be an entity that can trade in relatively illiquid investmentgrade corporate bonds and be readily available in times of stress to buy such bonds from participants in the secondary market. “We need to do a lot of work on the bond market. The government and all the major participants are continuously in dialogue to do more and more to develop our bond market,” said Anand Mohan Bajaj, additional secretary, department of economic affairs, while addressing the CII Financial Markets Summit. He said the government is considering a backstop facility which would also be available during non-stress times.

He emphasised on another Budget announcement of having “rationalised single securities market code”, and said that it would be a forward-looking measure.

Speaking at the event, Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal said the government and the RBI are working on inclusion of Indian sovereign bonds in global bond indices and some announcement in the space is expected during the year.

“We opened up a section of our government debt market for foreign players last year. Some have invested into it, but less than 50 per cent of what was opened, he said.