New Players Enter the Public Fund Arena: Bond ETFs Surge by Over 500 Billion Yuan This Year

Since the beginning of this year, bond ETF products have continued to expand, with their management scale rising significantly. According to Wind data, as of September 28, the number of bond ETF products has reached 53, with a total scale of 684.4 billion yuan, an increase of over 500 billion yuan since the start of the year—a substantial growth of 280%.

On one hand, the market landscape of bond ETFs has been continuously improving, forming three major categories: government bond ETFs, credit bond ETFs, and convertible bond ETFs. In particular, the newly listed Sci-Tech Innovation Bond ETF has enabled the bond ETF system to cover both traditional government and credit bond markets while aligning with the national strategy for technological innovation, further enhancing the multi-tiered bond investment tool matrix.

On the other hand, asset management products such as pension funds, social security funds, annuities, and public fund FOFs are increasingly allocating to ETFs. Additionally, retail investors' attention to bond ETFs continues to rise.

Furthermore, against the backdrop of the public fund fee rate reform, the importance of bond ETFs with redemption fee exemptions, money market funds, and interbank certificate of deposit funds has increased, and their scale is expected to continue expanding.

"Given that some ETFs have distinct features and advantages in holding costs, T+0 trading, pledgeability, physical creation and redemption, and capital efficiency, the future development of index bond funds should primarily focus on ETFs," said Lu Zhe, an analyst at Soochow Securities. He added that the scale of index bond funds, especially bond index ETFs, is expected to continue growing significantly, with credit bond index ETFs and equity-linked ETFs being particularly noteworthy.

It is worth noting that in the bond ETF space, institutions such as HFT Investment Management, GT Fund, Ping An Fund, Penghua Fund, and Bosera Fund were early entrants. However, since the beginning of this year, multiple institutions, including Huatai-PineBridge Fund, Yongying Fund, Wanjia Fund, Taikang Fund, JPMorgan Asset Management, and Yinhua Fund, have accelerated their entry, becoming new players in the bond ETF market.