(Bloomberg) -- South Korea’s central bank agreed with the National Pension Service to expand the size and duration of a currency swap deal, a move that may help slow the won’s decline.
The swap deal will be raised to $65 billion from $50 billion, while the duration of the agreement was extended by another year to the end of 2025, the Bank of Korea said in a statement Thursday. The state pension fund is a big player in the FX market as it expands its overseas investment.
The swap expansion comes as the won dropped to its lowest level in more than 15 years, as a hawkish Federal Reserve hammered Asian currencies. The won has also faced pressure from political chaos in Korea, and tariff threats from US President-elect Donald Trump.
The arrangement would enable the NPS, which oversaw 1,146 trillion won ($791 billion) of funds as of the end of September, to tap the BOK’s dollar reserves rather than purchasing directly from the foreign-exchange market.
“It is a win-win scheme for both BOK and NPS,” said Yoon Kyoungsoo, director general of the BOK’s international department. “From the FX authorities point of view, the swap is expected to help ease market volatility, while NPS would need the agreement to hedge any FX risks.”
BOK’s Rhee Sees Reason to Boost FX Swap With NPS “Substantially”
In a separate statement earlier, NPS said it will maintain its strategic FX hedging cap at 10% for another year until end 2025.
The currency swap and the 10% strategic FX hedging cap are intended to help the fund minimize investment risk and secure its earnings from currency swings, an official at the NPS who asked not to be named due to internal policy, said in a phone call. In particular, the latter is an important method to lock in profits as it operates when won is unusually weak, the official added.
The official also addressed market concerns that NPS will automatically resume overseas investments in the new year even as the won keeps weakening. The NPS does not mechanically execute overseas investments, rather, it takes into consideration the overall mid-term asset distribution plan, the official said.
In September, the Korean government decided to triple the maximum amount of foreign currency that the state pension fund can buy in advance to $3 billion per month.
(Updates fifth, seventh and eighth paragraphs with comments from BOK and NPS officials)
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