BIS Quarterly Review
by Tracy Chan, Goetz von Peter and Philip Wooldridge
The period since the Great Financial Crisis has seen a shift in debt financing from loans to bonds. This article provides an overview of how the BIS debt securities statistics can be used to examine the size and structure of bond financing, including its sectoral and currency composition. Government issuance drove the growth of bond markets, but private sector activity fuelled their broader development, including access for a more diverse mix of borrowers. Governments stepped up their borrowing mainly in their domestic currency. Meanwhile, private sector borrowers continued to tap bond markets in foreign currency, mainly US dollars.