October 5 (SeeNews) - Luxembourg-based international central securities depository Clearstream has connected the Serbian capital market to its global network, enabling settlement of dinar-denominated government bonds, it said.
The step aims to attract cross-border investments and improve liquidity in the domestic capital market, with Clearstream benefiting from an omnibus account structure, as well as offshore settlement to other banking clients without the need to revisit the domestic market, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Raiffeisen Bank International will act as local custodian and operator of Clearstream’s account at the Serbian central securities depository (CSD), the company said.
“We look forward to adding Serbia to our global network, offering our clients access to the domestic capital markets together with excellent local partners. This cross-border link creates various new investment and financing opportunities for the domestic market, underpinning our commitment to connect capital markets all over the world,” Jan Willems, Head of Global Markets at Clearstream, noted.
The linkage comes following the recent inclusion of Serbia's dinar-denominated bonds in a series of major local-currency emerging markets indices, such as J.P. Morgan's Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) and their Government Bond Index-Aggregate (GBI-AGG), which triggered a significant increase in turnover on the secondary market as well as an arrival of new buyers of related bonds and foreign investment funds.
Clearstream, which is part of Deutsche Boerse Group, provides the post-trade infrastructure for the Eurobond market and services for securities from 59 domestic markets worldwide.