Pan Asia Banking Corporation PLC’s senior debenture issue to raise Rs.4 billion was oversubscribed yesterday, on the opening day itself. 
According to sources close to the issue, the bank received close to Rs.5 billion worth of subscriptions. 

The bank opened the issue last morning to initially raise Rs.2 billion but the bank upsized the issue by another Rs.2 billion – Rs.1 billion each – as the initial tranche was oversubscribed. 

The private lender issued the debenture at a time when the corporate debt issuers were playing delay tactics to take cues from the interest rate direction. 
Hence, the Pan Asia Bank debenture ended the short-lived breather of the corporate debt market and thus provided the much-needed confidence into the market and the issuers in the pipeline.  

The country’s largest lender, Bank of Ceylon will open subscriptions for its Rs.8 billion debenture on October 1, 2015. 

Further, the second largest private lender, Hatton National Bank PLC has also announced plans for a Rs.10 billion five-year debenture issue. 

Pan Asia Bank’s debenture issue offered four options for the investors between floating and fixed interest rates under two tenures – three years and four years.