MAS to enhance bank access to dollar funding

Bloomberg

Singapore’s financial regulator said it will introduce measures to enhance banks’ access to local and US dollar funding to protect the city state’s financial sector against the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
From September 28, the new facility will provide banks and financial firms an additional channel to borrow Singapore dollar funds at longer tenors and will allow lenders to use more forms of collateral, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement. The regulator will also raise the asset encumbrance limit for locally-incorporated banks to 10% of total assets from 4%, it said.
While banks “maintain health liquidity buffers, MAS is introducing this facility preemptively to provide greater certainty of access to central bank liquidity,” it said in the statement. “This will help contain any liquidity strains before they pose a
serious challenge.”