Media Release Domestic Market Dealing Arrangements

To improve liquidity in a number of domestic markets, the Bank has decided to widen further the range of securities eligible for its repurchase operations (repos). The expanded arrangements will be effective from Monday, 10 November, and will remain in place until 30 June 2009. Ahead of 30 June 2009, the Bank will determine whether these arrangements will need to be continued.

From Monday, 10 November, the list of securities eligible for repos will be extended to include:

• Australian dollar commercial paper (CP) rated P-1 or equivalent;
• Australian dollar asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) rated P-1 or equivalent; and
• Australian dollar debt securities rated AAA or equivalent, excluding highly structured products.

As is currently the case, the Bank will not accept a security under repo unless it is on the list of eligible securities.  Counterparties must apply to have securities added to the eligible list.  The RBA will continue to deal only in securities lodged in Austraclear.

A counterparty will not be able to offer securities issued, or supported, by itself or a related party.  An exception to this will continue for authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) offering residential mortgage-related asset-backed securities as outlined in the Bank's Media Release dated 8 October 2008. The expanded range of securities will also be acceptable for repos on an intraday or overnight basis.

• For CP, and asset-backed securities (including ABCP, CMBS and RMBS), the Bank will apply a margin of 10 per cent;
• For other AAA-rated securities, the margin will vary with maturity, as follows:

Margins on securities that are currently eligible for market operations remain the same.