咩係"Repurchase Agreements" ?

Repurchase agreements (RPs or repos) are financial instruments used in the money markets and capital markets. A more accurate and descriptive term is Sale and Repurchase Agreement, since what occurs is that the cash receiver (seller) sells securities now, in return for cash, to the cash provider (buyer), and agrees to repurchase those securities from the buyer for a greater sum of cash at some later date, that greater sum being all of the cash lent and some extra cash (constituting interest, known as the repo rate). There is little that prevents any security from being employed in a repo; so, Treasury or Government bills, corporate and Treasury / Government bonds, and stocks / shares, may all be used as securities involved in a repo. A reverse repo is simply a repurchase agreement as described from the buyer's viewpoint, not the seller's. Hence, the seller executing the transaction would describe it as a 'repo', while the buyer in the same transaction would describe it a 'reverse repo'. So 'repo' and 'reverse repo' are exactly the same kind of transaction, just described from opposite viewpoints.
A repo is economically similar to a secured loan, with the buyer receiving securities as collateral to protect against default. However, the legal title to the securities clearly passes from the seller to the buyer, or "investor". Coupons (installment payments that are payable to the owner of the securities) which are paid while the repo buyer owns the securities are, in fact, usually passed directly onto the repo seller which might seem counterintuitive, as the ownership of the collateral technically rests with the buyer during the repo agreement. It is possible to instead pass on the coupon by altering the cash paid at the end of the agreement, though this is more typical of Sell/Buy Backs.
Although the underlying nature of the transaction is that of a loan, the terminology differs from that used when talking of loans due to the fact that the seller does actually repurchase the legal ownership of the securities from the buyer at the end of the agreement. So, although the actual effect of the whole transaction is identical to a cash loan, in using the 'repurchase' terminology, the emphasis is placed upon the current legal ownership of the collateral securities by the respective parties.
Although repos are typically short-term, it is not unusual to see repos with a maturity as long as two years.
Example:
Equity repo
The underlying security for most repo transactions is in the form of government or corporate bonds. Equity repos are simply repos on equity securities such as common (or ordinary) shares. Some complications can arise because of greater complexity in the tax rules for dividends as opposed to coupons.