Exchange Fund Bills & Notes Programme

Exchange Fund Bills and Notes (EFBNs) are Hong Kong dollar debt securities issued by the HKMA. They constitute direct, unsecured, unconditional and general obligations of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government for the account of the Exchange Fund and have the same status as all other unsecured debt of the Government.

The EFBN Issuance Programme ensures the supply of a significant amount of high-quality Hong Kong dollar debt papers, which can be employed as trading, investment and liquidity management instruments. Banks that maintain Hong Kong dollar clearing accounts with the HKMA may arrange repurchase agreements using their holdings of Exchange Fund papers (and other eligible securities) as collateral to obtain overnight liquidity from the HKMA through the Discount Window.

Key Features of Exchange Fund Bills & Notes

	Exchange Fund Bills	Exchange Fund Notes
Maturity	Less than 1 year Normally, bills of 91-day, 182-day and 364-day maturity are issued regularly	From 2-year to 15-year* Notes of 2-year maturity are issued regularly
Method of sales	By competitive tender on a bid-yield basis	By competitive tender on a bid-price basis or non-competitive tender
Minimum bid	HK$500,000	HK$50,000
Interest rate	No interest paid	Fixed interest rate
Interest payment frequency (day count)	Not applicable	Semi-annually (Actual/365)

* Since 2015, the HKMA has stopped new issuance of Exchange Fund Notes with tenors of three years or above.

Dealership Scheme

The EFBN Programme adopts a dealership scheme to support market development.

Recognised Dealers

Financial institutions maintaining Securities Accounts with the HKMA for holding Exchange Fund papers

Market Makers

Appointed from the pool of Recognised Dealers and are responsible for maintaining the liquidity of Exchange Fund papers in the secondary market, especially by undertaking to quote two-way prices upon request during normal trading hours

Eligible Market Makers

Appointed from the pool of Market Makers to participate in the primary market

Current list of Recognised Dealers and Market Makers

PDF File, 55KB

Excel File, 39KB

Current list of Eligible Market Makers and Indicative Pricings Contributors

Exchange Fund Bills and Notes Indicative Pricings

The HKMA publishes Exchange Fund Bills and Notes indicative pricings two times a day. The indicative pricings are calculated by Reuters based on indicative bid and ask quotes provided by the Eligible Market Markers designated by the HKMA.

Related Information

Important Policy Initiatives

Press Release(s)

Last revision date : 29 December 2023