CBN Offers N182b Treasury Bills to Investors via PMA

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will today, September 19, 2018, conduct the second sale of treasury bills via the Primary Market Auction (PMA).

During the exercise, the apex bank will auction the instruments worth N182.14 billion, which are also maturing, to market players.

Business Post reports that the apex bank will offer N5.40 billion worth of the 91-day bill, N8.39 billion of the 12-day bill and N168.36 billion worth of the 364-day bill to investors.

Investors would be expecting to get the stop rates higher than the last exercise conducted by the central bank.

Market players are also expected to show huge appetite for the one-year tenor and there would be surprised if investors ask for rates in the region of 14 percent.

At the last PMA, the 364-day note cleared at 13.50 percent.

Next Monday, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the CBN would meet to review the MPR rate, which is presently at 14 percent.

Last week, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the inflation report for August, which increased for the first time in 18 months to 11.23 percent.

With the election coming in few months’ time, inflation is expected to keep rising, which may likely force a hike in the interest rate, leading to higher T-bills rates.