A Kimchi bond is a non- won-denominated financial bond issued in the

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

n market. The name refers to

kimchi ''Kimchi'' (; ko, 김치, gimchi, ), is a traditional Korean side dish of salted and fermented vegetables, such as napa cabbage and Korean radish. A wide selection of seasonings are used, including '' gochugaru'' (Korean chili powder), ...

, a Korean side dish.

Woori Bank Woori Bank (Hangul: 우리은행 ''Uri Eunhaeng'') is a Korean multinational bank headquartered in Seoul. It is one of the four largest domestic banks in South Korea and is showing a strong presence not only for commercial banking but also for co ...

, which is credited with coining the term, defines it as solely referring to bonds from foreign issuers, a definition echoed by the Ministry of Finance and Economy. However, in practice, the term is also used to refer to non-won-denominated bond issuance by domestic entities.

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

credits itself as having executed the first kimchi bond transaction, a

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

100 million two-year

floating rate note Floating rate notes (FRNs) are bonds that have a variable coupon, equal to a money market reference rate, like LIBOR or federal funds rate, plus a quoted spread (also known as quoted margin). The spread is a rate that remains constant. Almost all ...

sold by South Korean company SK Global, but the first foreign company to sell non-won-denominated bonds in the South Korean market was

Bear Stearns The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York-based global investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The comp ...

. Although foreign firms had long been permitted to issue won-denominated bonds, typically referred to as Arirang bonds, permission for them to issue foreign currency-denominated bonds was slower in coming. Permission was finally granted due to the strength of the won in 2005.

References

{{reflist Bonds in foreign currencies Finance in South Korea