S. Korea's mortgage-backed securities issuance rises in 1st half of year

　　SEOUL, July 31 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's issuance of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) rose in double digits in the first half of this year on solid demand for the government-backed mortgage loans, financial watchdog data showed Monday.

　　The sale of the MBS, issued by the state-run Korea Housing Finance Corp. to securitize mortgage loans, came in at 17.6 trillion won (13.8 billion U.S. dollars) for the January-June period, up 48.4 percent compared to the same period of last year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

　　The double-digit growth was attributable to robust demand for government-backed mortgage loans that allow floating-rate loans to be altered into fixed-rate ones amid the higher interest rates.

　　The central bank had left its policy rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January, after raising it by 3.0 percentage points for the past one and a half years.

　　The issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS), including the MBS, amounted to 29.9 trillion won (23.4 billion dollars) in the first half, up 24.6 percent from a year earlier.

　　ABS refers to securities based on such assets as mortgages, auto loans, credit card receivables and student loans.

　　The ABS issuance by financial firms grew 9.8 percent to 8.7 trillion won (6.8 billion dollars) in the cited period owing to demand for the ABS, sold by banks with non-performing loans (NPL) as underlying assets.

　　The ABS sale by industrial companies declined 14.4 percent to 3.6 trillion won (2.8 billion dollars) in the first half.

　　The outstanding ABS issuance stood at 238.4 trillion won (186.6 billion dollars) at the end of June, up 4.2 percent from a year earlier. ■