The Central Bank of Nigeria on Thursday, said it would issue a total of N722.17 billion treasury bills in the third quarter of 2021.
The figure is N151.76 billion more than the N570.41 billion treasury bills the regulator issued in the previous quarter.
In its treasury bills issue programme for the third quarter of 2021, the CBN said it will raise a total of N529.68 billion in the one-year tenor treasury bills, N151.13 billion worth of the six-month debt instruments and N41.36 billion of the threemonth debt instrument in Q3’21.
CBN sells treasury bills twice monthly as part of measures to raise cashback on behalf of the Debt Management Office for government budget spending ahead of revenue accretion.
The apex bank also issues the paper to help lenders manage their liquidity.
In a recent report, analysts at Coronation Asset Management Limited predicted that treasury bill rates, which have been rising in recent weeks, will maintain an upward trend and could climb above 10.0 per cent by the middle of this year.
According to the analysts, “recent auctions in the Nigerian treasury bill market have reached yields of 5.5 per cent (for one-year paper), trending upwards and trading much higher than yields in the secondary market.
“We think that T-bill yields can reach 10.0 per cent per annum, if not higher, by mid-year.”