By Dipo Olowookere
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) further reduced the stop rates of treasury bills at the primary market on Wednesday in line with projections by Business Post.
The central bank had during today’s exercise auctioned T-bills valued at N86.3 billion to investors at the market. The debt instruments were sold across three maturities like in the previous exercises.
According to data obtained by Business Post, the apex bank offered for sale N1.8 billion worth of the 91-day bill, N14.0 billion worth of the 182-day bill and N70.5 billion worth of 364-day bill.
When the bids were analysed, the sum of N23.8 billion was put on the three-month instrument, the six-month tenor received subscriptions valued at N29.5 billion, while the 12-month maturity received bids worth N190.2 billion.
This means that the total value of subscriptions stood at N243.5 billion, indicating a subscription rate of 282.2 percent.
Despite the high subscription level of the debt instrument, the central only allotted the amount it initially offered for sale. However, the huge appetite for the investment tool gave the apex bank the opportunity to further slash the stop rates.
The rates cleared lower than their previous levels. The bank lowered the 91-day rate to 2.49 percent from 3.00 percent, rate for the 182-day bill was reduced to 3.78 percent from 4.00 percent, while rate for the 364-day bill was cut down to 5.3 percent from 5.70 percent.