Reuters leads the way with Egyptian fixed-income benchmarks

Reuters was first with launching benchmarks for the Egyptian fixed income market. The benchmarks cover instruments ranging from overnight deposit rates to T-Bills of three months and up to one year to bonds of up to 10 years. The benchmarks, launched in the summer, are based on pricings offered by 13 Egyptian and international contributors, including main market players such as National Bank of Egypt, Commercial International Bank and Citibank. For the first time, traders in the market now have a benchmark that reflects Egyptian interest rate trends, an issue that is becoming increasingly vital to market players inside and outside Egypt as the country attracts more foreign investors and concerns grow about the future leadership of the Arab world’s most populous nation as elections loom this year and next. This benchmark runs in parallel to work by the Central Bank of Egypt and the Ministry of Finance, which have been seeking to develop Egypt’s secondary market in fixed-income.