Structured credit comes of age

Unusually, the credit default swap market in Japan is being boosted by a surge of interest in structured credit rather than any rise in corporate bond issuance. Laurence Neville reports

While Japan's business community is helping to bid sayonara to 15 years of recession by adopting a more outward-looking, internationalised attitude, its domestic debt market remains steadfastly parochial. Few foreign issuers outside the sovereign and banking markets go to the expense and hassle of trying to attract Japanese investors with Samurai bonds - foreign debt sold in Japan.

The main barriers to foreign issuance are culture and language. The practicalities of registering to issue bonds in