Treasury raises P24.2B from T-bills
The Bureau of the Treasury’s (BTR) latest auction on Monday yielded mixed results amid tepid demand, barring the agency from meeting its target fund.
The auction committee fully awarded bids for the 182-day and 364-day Treasury bills (T-bills) but only partially awarded the 91-day securities.
The 182-day and 364-day T-bills fetched average rates of 5.646 percent and 5.748 percent, respectively.
In contrast, the 91-day T-bill was capped at 5.307 percent due to subdued appetite and a wide dispersion of submitted bids, some exceeding the rates of the longer-tenor T-bills.
Despite this, the auction attracted P45.7 billion in total tenders, making it 1.8 times oversubscribed against the P25 billion total offering.
Consequently, the committee raised P24.2 billion of the intended P25 billion.
This happened as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Eli Remolona Jr. said last week there was a “good chance” of a quarter-point interest rate cut in April.
Remolona said that as inflation continued to ease while the Philippine peso became less of a problem for monetary authorities.
When the MB held its first policy meeting for this year last February, the benchmark rate that banks typically use as a guide when pricing loans was kept at 5.75 percent, defying market expectations.
Remolona had admitted that the pause was not an easy decision for monetary authorities, who were very wary of uncertainties coming from a slew of tariff actions in the United States.
Instead, the BSP had decided to deliver another jumbo cut to the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) of banks. —WITH A REPORT FROM IAN NICOLAS P. CIGARAL
