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BLOG — Mar 31, 2025
The role of technology in the Asia Pacific loan market
By James Irwin
In recent years, S&P Global and our Loan Platforms solutions have been part of efforts in the evolving Asia Pacific loan market to expand use of technology, working with several key participants in the region – including banks, agents and the APLMA. Historically, technology adoption was not a priority for many institutions, but there are increasing signs that in the primary and secondary market, it has a more central role to play supporting greater automation and efficiency. This automation and efficiency will impact primary and secondary trade settlement, participant access to Agent/Lender data, and digitizing the manual process of managing and verifying entity data.
Smart Syndications: a unified ecosystem for Primary loans
To support the operational requirements for primary syndications, we recently introduced our Smart Syndication ecosystem. Smart Syndication is powered by our ClearPar platform, the market standard in worldwide loan markets for primary and secondary trade settlement. ClearPar’s primary settlement capabilities, including automated transfer document creation and distribution to syndicate lenders, digital execution, and transparent funding/settlement coordination, remove the manual work and risk historically associated with bringing lenders into new or restructured deals.
Once primary allocations are finalised, each lender’s position is submitted by the Agent to our SOC-certified Loan Reconciliation tool. Lender access to their position(s) is integral to the ongoing maintenance of a loan for audit purposes, as well eliminating any discrepancies following potential secondary transfers or scheduled/unscheduled borrower repayments. Manual confirmation between Agents and Lenders has historically been burdensome, solved by centralising access while remaining confidential to each individual lender. Loan Reconciliation position data is also put to further use by integrating position with ClearPar for secondary trade decision making as well as being used with S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Debdtomain platform to automatically maintain agency site lender access.
The third component of Smart Syndications is enabling access to digitally maintained and verified market standard lender administrative details (ADF) and payment instructions (SSI’s). This eliminates the sharing of sensitive information over email as well as removing the painstaking manual callback process and rekeying of entity data – by leveraging S&P Global Market Intelligence’s ADFlow platform, the APLMA/LMA/LSTA standard ADF entity data can be consumed via API.
“Bringing together primary settlement, access to entity data, and centralising ongoing access to lender holdings is a transformational combination for arrangers and agents in Asia Pacific”, says Andy Luten, S&P Global Market Intelligence's Head of Lending Solutions, Asia Pacific. “In an ever -competitive and changing market, these tools complement skilled syndication and operations teams to reduce risk, enhance scalability, and provide timely and reliable data to the Asia Pacific loan community.”
Secondary loan market
Asia’s secondary loan market has historically been modest in volume compared to the more liquid markets in the U.S. and Europe, where institutional investors account for a larger portion of secondary trading. Secondary trading in Asia-Pacific has generally been between banks and liquidity often stifled by an unwillingness to sell down positions post primary and hold-to-maturity lender strategies. S&P is seeing gradual increase in secondary activity and a growing amount of that volume is being managed through platforms like ClearPar. Last month I had the privilege of speaking at the APLMA Global Loan Market Summit in Hong Kong with a focus on the outlook for the secondary market and the increasing role of technology. Asia- Pacific region is facing an inflection point driven by macroeconomic pressures, a changing investor base, and evolving market conditions. Technology and platforms are playing a larger role in the present and in the future, as market strategies and mindset shift in this direction. To watch the recording of the session accessible to APLMA members, please click here.
S&P Global Market Intelligence also recently supported the APLMA, publishing a report entitled “Into a New Era” that looks at the outlook for secondary loan markets in the region. This is another important step to raise the profile and increase awareness of the importance of a healthy secondary market in Asia Pacific. Click here to access the publication.
Learn more about Smart Syndication and our Loan Platforms solutions, and please get in touch for information or a demo.
This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global. S&P Global Market Intelligence’s opinions, quotes, and credit-related and other analyses are statements of opinion as of the date they are expressed and not statements of fact or recommendation to purchase, hold, or sell any securities or to make any investment decisions, and do not address the suitability of any security.