China Central Depository & Clearing Announces Five Fee Reduction Measures
0xBroomberg
China Central Depository & Clearing (CCDC) on July 27 announced five fee reductions for bond services, fully waiving charges on Panda bonds and sci-tech innovation bonds, effective September 1 to lower market-wide financing and trading costs.
What exactly is being cut?
Issuance registration fees for Panda bonds — yuan-denominated bonds issued by offshore entities in China — are fully waived.
Interest-payment and redemption service fees for both Panda bonds and sci-tech innovation bonds are also fully waived.
For other outstanding bonds in the interbank market, interest-payment fees get a 5% discount, bringing the rate to 0.00475%.
Spot-bond settlement fees drop 10% to ¥135 per transaction; repo and bond-lending settlement fees drop 5%.
Over-the-counter bond settlement fees drop 5% to 0.0019%, capped at ¥120 per transaction.
Why are Panda bonds and sci-tech bonds singled out?
Fully waiving Panda bond fees directly lowers the cost for foreign issuers entering China's bond market. This means → the policy goal is clear: attract more offshore capital to issue in renminbi, boosting the yuan's global appeal.
Waiving sci-tech bond fees targets lower direct-financing costs for technology companies. In plain terms = the "toll" for tech firms to borrow through the bond market just dropped.
This reflects two running policy priorities — opening up to foreign capital + supporting tech innovation — with infrastructure fee cuts as the delivery mechanism.
What does this mean for market participants?
Economist Pang Ming (龐溟) noted that the cuts "directly ease the burden on issuers and investors" and reduce trading friction and intermediary costs in the secondary market.
In plain terms = transaction fees for buying and selling bonds are lower, which should support better liquidity.
But Pang also flagged the real test ahead: whether these measures actually expand Panda bond issuance volumes and deepen the sci-tech bond market — that is the core verification point to watch.
Are these cuts permanent?
The five measures run from September 1, 2026 through December 31, 2028 — roughly two years and four months.
This means → it is a fixed-term pilot, not a permanent structural change. Whether it extends depends on market feedback and policy results.
The document is still in the public-comment phase, so final details may be fine-tuned.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.