By Dipo Olowookere
The 364-day treasury bills stop rate was raised by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the primary market auction (PMA) on Wednesday by 5.25 per cent as appetite for the asset class waned.
The central bank, which conducted the exercise, did not record the usual hunger for the debt instrument by investors yesterday, ostensibly because of how the bank had tinkered with the rates in the previous exercises.
But the apex bank surprised subscribers at the PMA on Wednesday when it jerked the rate higher to 14.74 per cent from the 9.49 per cent it cleared in the previous PMA.
According to details of the exercise, the CBN auctioned the one-year bill worth N139.96 billion and received subscriptions valued at N165.28 billion, allotting N142.16 billion.
Business Post reports that it was not only the 12-month dated instrument that enjoyed the rate hike yesterday as the two others benefitted.
The central auctioned N3.34 billion worth of the 182-day bill during the session but had investors stake N1.56 billion on it, with N1.56 billion allotted to successful bidders at 8.00 per cent compared with the previous session’s 5.00 per cent, indicating an increase of 3.00 per cent.
As for the 91-day bill, the rate cleared at 6.00 per cent after it was moved higher by 3.45 per cent from 2.55 per cent. This was after the apex bank allotted N1.75 billion to subscribers, the same amount of bids it received from the N2.16 billion taken to the market on Wednesday.
Recall that some days ago, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of Nigeria’s central bank increased the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), which is the benchmark interest rate in the country, by 0.50 per cent to 18.00 per cent.
The team explained that the rate hike was mainly to tame rising inflation in Nigeria, which the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said stood at 21.91 per cent in February.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka