OREANDA-NEWS. The Central Bank of Ireland has released its statistics on market-based financing activities of financial and non-financial firms incorporated in Ireland at end-March 2016.

Summary

  • The outstanding amount of debt securities issued by Irish resident entities (including Government) was €770.2 billion at end-March 2016, which was a fall of 11.7 per cent year-on year.  There was little change to the outstanding amount of debt securities issued by euro area residents, which fell by 2.4 per cent over the same period.
  • Debt financing for the banking sector stood at €59.8 billion at the end of March 2016, an increase of €2.5 billion from the same month last year.
  • Quoted shares had a market capitalisation of €542 billion at end-March which represented an increase of 6.5 per cent over the year.  This is largely due to the impact of mergers & acquisitions by redomiciled entities in the NFC sector over the year.  The value of the stock of quoted shares issued by euro area residents decreased by 9.7 per cent.

Banking Sector

At the end of March 2016, the outstanding amount of bank bonds was €59.8 billion, a decrease of €0.8 billion over the month – (Charts 1 & 2).  Over the year to March 2016, the outstanding amount of bank bonds increased by 4.3 per cent. This reflected an increase of nearly €5 billion in short-term debt securities combined with a decrease of €2.5 billion in long–term debt securities.  Long-term debt securities account for 76.8 per cent of the total debt securities issued by the banking sector.

Over the past twelve months, the total outstanding amount of debt securities for the banking sector across the euro area decreased by 8.1 per cent.

The market value of equities in the banking sector in Ireland increased by 38.5 per cent over the year, to stand at €34.3 billion as of March 2016.[1]  

Other Financial Intermediaries

The outstanding amount of debt securities issued by the other financial institutions (OFI) sector decreased by €11.4 billion in March, to stand at €566.7 billion (Charts 3 & 5).  This was 16 per cent lower compared to March 2015.  Long term debt securities account for 93.9 per cent of the total debt securities issued by the OFI sector (Chart 5).

Over the past twelve months, the total outstanding amount of debt securities for the OFI sector across the euro area decreased by 5.7 per cent. 

In March 2016, the value of the quoted shares in the OFI sector in Ireland increased by €0.4 billion from the previous month to stand at €26.2 billion.  There was an increase of 20.7 per cent over the year   (Charts 4 & 5).

Non-Financial Corporations

In March 2016, the value of the quoted shares in the non-financial corporations (NFC) sector decreased by €13.9 billion (2.8 per cent) from the previous month to stand at €481.3 billion.  This increase was largely due to the impact of market price and foreign exchange rate changes.  There was an increase of 4.2 per cent over the year, largely due to mergers and acquisitions by redomiciled entities (Chart 7). 

Over the past twelve months, the total market capitalisation of equities for NFCs in the euro area increased by 2.1 per cent.

The outstanding amount of debt securities issued by NFCs decreased year-on-year by €0.4 billion to stand at €10.3 billion in March 2016