New issuance in China's securitization market climbed 35% year over year to 951.4 billion yuan in the first six months of 2019, according to a report by S&P Global Ratings.
Growth was driven by higher issuance of asset-backed notes managed by China's National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, corporate receivables securitization and auto-loan asset-backed securities.
Auto-loan ABS had 17 transactions valued at 78.4 billion yuan in the first half, doubling the amount issued in the year-ago period. Residential mortgage-backed securities came in at 194.7 billion yuan, nearly matching the record high in the first half of 2018.
Meanwhile, issuance activity in collateralized loan obligations and unsecured consumer credit receivables securitization continued to decline.
The rating agency said trade tensions and slowing economic growth in China "had no discernible impact on securitized retail receivables in the first half."
As of Aug. 14, US$1 was equivalent to 7.02 Chinese yuan.