Yes Bank is heading back to the bond market for the first time since it wrote off a risky local note in 2020, having hired arrangers for a dollar bond sale, according to a Bloomberg report.
Yes Bank Set For Dollar Bond Comeback Years After AT1 Write-Off
The move comes as Indian lenders have collectively raised $5.27 billion over the past two months, a rush triggered by steps the Reserve Bank of India took in June to draw in more capital and shore up the rupee
Yes Bank
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The lender is planning to raise a benchmark-sized three-year note in US dollars and will begin investor calls from Monday.
The move comes as Indian lenders have collectively raised $5.27 billion over the past two months, a rush triggered by steps the Reserve Bank of India took in June to draw in more capital and shore up the rupee.
Yes Bank's last brush with the bond market ended badly. In March 2020, it fully wrote off its Additional Tier 1 bonds, hybrid instruments counted as capital that can be wiped out if certain conditions are triggered. That same year, regulators took control of the bank before a group of lenders led by State Bank of India stepped in to rescue it.
Ownership Change
The lender has since worked its way back. In 2025, the banking arm of Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group picked up close to a 25% stake, making it Yes Bank's largest shareholder. Alongside this, rating agencies have steadily upgraded its local bonds.
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Crisil Ratings, for instance, moved the bank's rupee infrastructure bonds and Basel III-compliant Tier 2 debt up to AA+ this month, from AA- earlier, pointing to consistent gains in its earnings. As recently as early 2023, those same bonds carried an A- rating.
On the dollar bond, Moody's Ratings has assigned Yes Bank a Ba1 rating, while S&P Global Ratings has it at BB+, a notch short of investment grade.
The broader backdrop is a scramble among Indian banks to raise dollars, as they look to increase leverage on foreign currency deposits aimed at overseas Indian citizens.
This follows the RBI's push to attract funds from India's 35-million-strong diaspora in order to stabilise the rupee and rebuild foreign exchange reserves. Since June, the country has pulled in over $50 billion through this route, enough for the central bank to shut the special deposit window a month earlier than planned.