International Currency Swap Markets Reveals of a Developing Credit Crunch!

Big trouble for risk asset bulls. US dollar shortages have been emerging all over.

From the Bloomberg: (bold mine)

A crunch is developing in international funding markets.

The cost to convert local currency payments in the euro area, U.K. and Japan into dollars has jumped amid speculation the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December. With other major central banks set to hold, or even loosen, monetary policy, the projected policy divergence is supercharging the usual year-end uptick in demand for dollar funding….

The one-year cross-currency basis swap rate between euros and dollars reached negative 39 basis points Wednesday, the largest effective premium for dollar borrowing since September 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The rate was at negative 37 basis points as of 11:31 a.m. London time.

The measure, which was closely watched by investors during the financial crisis as an indicator of stresses in the banking system, reached negative 138 basis points in 2008 following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. While the increase this month is driven more by monetary-policy divergence it still has implications for global banks. It also means U.S. companies, which have been borrowing in euros to take advantage of historically low interest rates, must pay more to swap those proceeds back into dollars….

This rush for dollar fundraising across the globe this month pushed up the one-year cost for Japanese banks to the highest level since 2011. Meanwhile, the cost for U.K. banks has more than doubled in November. That’s unusual because the surge was mostly focused in the euro area and Japan the last two occasions that funding costs rose, according to George Saravelos, global co-head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank AG in London.

Well, this seem more than just about the FED’s lift-off, although speculations about it have been exacerbating the current conditions.(see charts above)

This seems really more about those balance sheets overstuffed by debt as evidenced by the $9.6 trillion credit in US dollars to non-bank borrowers outside the United States at the end of Q1 2015 (BIS)

This excerpt from a study from the Bank for International Settlements illuminates on the current dynamic: (Global dollar credit: links to US monetary policy and leverage, BIS, Robert N McCauley, Patrick McGuire and Vladyslav Sushko January 2015)

First, evidence from 22 countries over the past 15 years shows that offshore dollar credit grows faster where local interest rates are higher than dollar yields, and this relationship has tightened since the global financial crisis. And the wider the gap between local 10-year yields and those on US Treasury bonds, the faster the next quarter growth in outstanding US dollar bonds issued by non-US resident borrowers. This finding is consistent with the observation that, since 2009, dollar credit has flowed to an unusual extent to emerging markets and to advanced economies that were not hit by the crisis, while it has grown at a slower pace in the euro area and the United Kingdom (UK). In sum, dollar credit has grown fastest outside the US where it has been relatively cheap.

Second, before the global financial crisis, banks extended the bulk of dollar credit to borrowers outside the US. Low volatility and easy wholesale financing enabled banks to leverage up to funnel dollar credit offshore. These findings are consistent with Bruno and Shin (2014b) and Rey (2013).

Third, since the crisis, non-bank investors have extended an unusual share of dollar credit to borrowers outside the US. Firms and governments outside the US have issued dollar bonds, and banks have stepped back as holders of such bonds. The compression of bond term premia associated with the Federal Reserve’s bond buying has induced investors to bid for bonds of borrowers outside the US, many rated BBB and thus offering a welcome spread over low-yielding US Treasury bonds. We also find that inflows into bond mutual funds offering a spread over US Treasuries played a significant role in spurring offshore dollar bond issuance. We interpret this as evidence of the portfolio rebalancing channel of the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchases.

A key observation is that, following a brief spike in spreads in Q4 2008, spreads declined in the subsequent quarters even as the stock of offshore dollar bonds grew rapidly. Thus, while we cannot reject the “spare tire” argument of Erel et al (2012) and Adrian et al (2013) at the height of the crisis (ie firms substituting from supply-constrained bank financing to bonds, despite widening spreads), any such effect seems to have been short-lived. Instead, heavy bond issuance amid falling yields and narrowing spreads points to the importance of a largely policy-induced favourable supply of funds from bond investors beginning in early 2009.

We end with a discussion of the implications for policy. First, dollar debt outside the US serves to transmit US monetary easing into immediately easier financial conditions for borrowers around the world. Second, while policy in economies outside the US can raise the cost of dollar debt at home, the effect of such policy is limited by multinational firms’ ability to borrow dollars abroad through offshore affiliates. Third, the recent prominence of bond markets in supplying dollar credit introduces new risks to financial stability, and thus changes the way that we need to think about the policy challenges posed by offshore dollar credit growth.

Now a progressing feedback mechanism between onerous cross border debt levels AND a downshift in global economic performance has been increasing strains in the supply of US dollar. Combine these with Fed’s potential rate hike (policy asymmetry between US and the world), hence the brewing credit crunch storm.

 

Currency Markets 101: FX Swaps and Cross-currency basis swap

One of the objectives of this blog is to spread financial literacy.

And considering the growing sophistication of financial markets, market participants may have learn, understand and perhaps consider using some of the available diverse tools to hedge on risks aimed at enhancing corporate returns or at financing investments.

This week we feature basics of FX Swaps and Cross-currency basis swaps which we will excerpt from a working paper by the Bank of International Settlements entitled “Price discovery from cross-currency and FX swaps: a structural analysis”

Note this is different from the US Federal Reserve instituted Swap lines as we discussed in How Does Swap Lines Work? Possible Implications to Asia and Emerging Markets.

All highlights mine…

1. Cross-currency basis swap

There are numerous types of cross-currency swap contracts, among which the most widely used in recent years is a type of contract named the cross-currency basis swap. A typical cross-currency basis swap (hereafter “currency swap”) agreement is a contract in which Japanese banks borrow U.S. dollars (USD) from, and lend yen (JPY) to, non-Japanese banks simultaneously. Figure 1(i) illustrates the flow of funds associated with this currency swap. At the start of the contract, bank A (a Japanese bank) borrows X USD from, and lends X× S JPY to, bank B (a non-Japanese bank), where S is the FX spot rate at the time of contract. During the contract term, bank A receives JPY 3M LIBOR+α from, and pays USD 3M LIBOR to, bank B every three months. When the contract expires, bank A returns X USD to bank B, and bank B returns X× S JPY to bank A. At the start of the contract, both banks decide α, which is the price of the basis swap. In other words, bank A (B) borrows foreign currency by putting up its home currency as collateral, and hence this swap is effectively a collateralised contract.

These currency swaps have been employed by both Japanese and non-Japanese banks to fund foreign currencies, for both their own and their customers’ account, including multinational corporations engaged in foreign direct investment. Currency swaps have been also used as a hedging tool, particularly for issuers of so-called Samurai bonds, which are JPY-denominated bonds issued in Japan by non-Japanese companies. By nature, most of these transactions are long-term, ranging from one year to 30 years.

Illustration by BIS

2. FX swap

A typical FX swap agreement is also a contract in which Japanese banks borrow USD from, and lend JPY to, non-Japanese banks simultaneously. The main differences from the currency swap are that: (i) during the contract term, there are no exchanges of floating interest between JPY and USD rates; and (ii) at the end of the contract, the different amount of funds is returned compared with the amount exchanged at the start.

Figure 1(ii) illustrates the flow of funds associated with the FX swap. At the start of the contract, bank A (Japanese bank) borrows X USD from, and lends X × S JPY, to bank B (non-Japanese bank), where S is the FX spot rate at the time of contract. When the contract expires, bank A returns X USD to bank B, and bank B returns X × F JPY to bank A, where F Is the FX forward rate as of the start of contract. As is the case with currency swaps, FX swaps are effectively collateralised contracts.

FX swaps have been employed by both Japanese and non-Japanese banks for funding foreign currencies, for both their own and their customers’ account, including exporters, importers, and Japanese institutional investors in hedged foreign bonds. FX swaps have also been used for speculative trading. The most liquid term is shorter than one year, but in recent years, transactions with longer maturities have been actively conducted for purposes such as foreign currency funding for corporate direct investments and arbitrage activities with crosscurrency swaps. In fact, many market participants point out that the liquidity of FX swaps with maturities longer than one year has improved during the past several years.