Liquidity Drops as CBN Mops up N116bn Via OMO Sale

By Dipo Olowookere

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday offered N100 billion worth of OMO bills to investors and the exercise recorded 105 percent oversubscription.

Two maturities were auctioned to market players by the apex bank yesterday; the 93-day bill and the 205-day paper.

Of the N100 billion worth of the debt instrument offered for sale, the central bank received subscriptions worth N205.30 billion.

The 205-day note attracted investors with subscriptions valued at N179.26 billion were got from the N70.00 billion auctioned, while the 93-day bill received N26.04 billion offers from the N30.00 billion auctioned.

At the close of the exercise, the CBN allotted N15.90 billion of the 93-day bill at 11.80 percent, while N100.41 billion was allotted for the 205-day paper at 13.14 percent.

Generally, the secondary market for treasury bills was traded on a relatively quiet note, with yields trending slightly higher.

At the money market yesterday, rates trended higher by 2 percent due to the N116 billion OMO sale which led to a decline in system liquidity from opening levels of N285 billion.

The Open Buy Back (OBB) and Overnight (OVN) rates consequently ended the session at 12.00 percent and 12.67 percent respectively.