RPT-BREAKINGVIEWS-India's embrace of hot money will pay off slowly

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, May 19 (Reuters Breakingviews) - India is shaking off a decade-old suspicion of flighty foreigners. Officials are easing rules to let them own more of its $600 billion of company debt and smoothing access to treasuries. Global economic conditions do not favour an immediate deluge of flows, but the country's road to a deeper bond market is getting shorter.

The central bank this month removed a 30% cap on outsiders owning bonds with residual maturity of less than a year. Days later, markets watchdog Securities and Exchange Board of India proposed a simpler due diligence regime for treasury-focused investors that could ease compliance for funds with complex structures or multiple schemes.

The reforms signal India is warming up to what it once considered hot money: itinerant pools of capital that bet on interest rate and currency differentials between markets. That's a big turnaround from a decade ago. Back then, authorities restricted their access to short-term securities following massive outflows during the so-called taper tantrum, sparked by the U.S. central bank revealing it would start scaling back its asset purchase program.

At present, rising U.S. yields dim the allure of Indian debt: foreign portfolio investors have used only 14% of the quota of company bonds available to them, down from 38% in May 2020. Officials are therefore willing to adjust conditions to be more favourable for high-yield seekers like Ares Management ARES.N and Oaktree, which are pushing into the market and prefer to hold debt to redemption rather than constantly monitor residual maturities for illiquid paper.

The additional liquidity it attracts could create a new layer of issuers between top-rated companies which dominate the market and high-risk borrowers, said Jayesh Mehta, vice chairman and CEO at non-bank lender DSP Finance. Bond issuance by Indian companies hit a record high in 2024. Top issuers included Bajaj Finance BJFN.NS and the parent firm of Bharti Airtel BRTI.NS.

Cash will not gush in immediately, as the yield differential between U.S. treasuries and the Indian equivalent is just 170 basis points, the narrowest in two decades. Over time, the shift will help India cut its companies' dependence on bank lending. There's a long way to go: the country's corporate bond market is just 16% of GDP, less than half the ratio for China. Still, it's better to open up when inflows will be a trickle rather than a flood.

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CONTEXT NEWS

Securities and Exchange Board of India on May 13 proposed dropping disclosure requirements on group details of foreign investors who hold Indian government bonds.

The country's central bank on May 8 withdrew short-term investment and concentration limits applied to FPIs investing in Indian company debt.