SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's asset-backed securities (ABS) issuance logged a double-digit growth in the third quarter due to solid demand for mortgage-backed securities (MBS), financial watchdog data showed Thursday.
The ABS issuance stood at 13.27 trillion won (9.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the July-September quarter, up 23.9 percent compared to the same quarter of last year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.
The double-digit expansion was attributed to strong demand for the long-term, fixed-rate mortgage loan, sponsored by the government, leading to a double-digit increase in the MBS sale.
The issuance of MBS, sold by the state-run Korea Housing Finance Corp. to securitize mortgage loans, jumped 28.7 percent from a year earlier to 5.11 trillion won (3.5 billion dollars) in the third quarter.
The ABS sale by financial companies grew 2.9 percent to 5.78 trillion won (4.0 billion dollars), while the issuance by non-financial companies more than doubled to 2.38 trillion won (1.6 billion dollars).
The ABS sale, backed by loans such as mortgage, non-performing loan and real estate project financing (PF), soared 36.2 percent in the cited quarter.
Outstanding ABS issuance totaled 243.5 trillion won (168.1 billion dollars) at the end of September, down 5.9 percent from a year earlier. ■
