China’s onshore bond traders cut off from pricing and transaction services amid regulatory tightening on financial data
- Bond traders said third-party platforms have stopped providing some important services from Wednesday after receiving notices from regulators
- The move will hit liquidity and transactions in the world’s second-largest bond market, but could improve alignment with international standards, expert says
A number of traders told the Post they were unable to use real-time pricing and other trading functions at third-party platforms such as Qeubee and DealingMatrix. Wind Information only showed prices provided by market makers, while agents’ pricing and transaction information could not be accessed on Wednesday morning.
The move underscores Beijing’s tightening grip on data security following the recent revamp of financial regulators, dealing a blow to liquidity and transactions. China’s US$21 trillion bond market is the world’s second-largest, with foreign funds owning 3 per cent of the securities. More than 1.25 trillion yuan (US$180.9 billion) changed hands daily in 2022, according to government data.
The move to stop pricing services could be due to issues related with ownership and usage rights of financial data, said Chen Ke, chief analytics officer at CSPI Ratings, a Hong Kong-based ratings agency. “In the future, regulators will have stricter requirements on the security, legality and usage standards of financial data,” he said.
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