MANILA – The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) partially awarded on Monday the three- and six-month Treasury bills (T-bills) after rates increased following last week’s rate hike decision by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
It offered all tenors for PHP5 billion each but only accepted PHP3.55 billion for the 91-day paper and PHP4.5 billion for the 182-day T-bill.
Tenders for the three-month debt paper reached PHP7.33 billion while it amounted to PHP10 billion for the six-month and PHP12.988 billion for the one-year.
The average rate of the 91-day T-bill rose to 4.413 percent, the 182-day to 5.060 percent and the one-year to 5.455 percent.
These were at 4.230 percent, 4.949 percent and 5.298 percent for the 91-day, 182-day and 364-day papers, respectively, during the auction last Feb. 13.
National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon traced the T-bill rate uptick to the “aftermath of BSP 50 bps (basis points) rate hikes and (the) upward revision to average inflation for 2023 to 6.1 percent.”
De Leon was referring to the policy rate decision of the central bank’s policy-making Monetary Board (MB) last week, which was attributed primarily to the higher-than-expected acceleration of domestic inflation rate last January to 8.7 percent from month-ago’s 8.1 percent.
“Committee decided to keep rates aligned with secondary level, thus partial awards for 91- and 182-day T-bills,” she added. (PNA)
