BTr fully awards T-bill offering

MANILA, Philippines — The government made a full award of the P20 billion worth of Treasury bills as their rates settled within expectations amid healthy demand from investors, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said yesterday.

During yesterday’s auction, the 91-day T-bills fetched an average rate of 3.413 percent, 38.9 basis points higher than the 3.024 percent recorded on March 9, when the debt papers had its last successful auction.

Total tenders amounted to P15.95 billion, higher than the P10 billion offer size.

Rates for the 182-day securities likewise rose by 15.5 basis points to 3.553 percent from the 3.398 percent fetched during its last successful auction three weeks ago.

The P5 billion offering was more than twice oversubscribed, with total tenders amounting to P10.915 billion.

Lastly, the average rate for the 364-day T-bills rose by 28.8 basis points to 3.845 percent from 3.557 percent three weeks ago.

Healthy demand also met the P5 billion offering as total bids reached P10.81 billion.

Despite the increase in rates, National Treasurer Rosalia De Leon said the auction committee decided to fully award the debt papers as the rates are still within “internal estimates.”

“Rates (are) within internal estimates and secondary levels. Market continues to remain cautious as the duration of lockdown is uncertain,” De Leon said in a text message to reporters.

At the same time, De Leon said there is a need to absorb the liquidity released into the financial system following the cut in reserve requirement ratio (RRR) implemented by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

“(We) have to deploy liquidity from the RRR cut. Also there is P16 billion redemption adding to liquidity that needs to be put to work,” she added, referring to maturing securities.