BSP’s liquidity trap shrinks with few takers

For the third straight week, both tenors of the term deposit facility (TDF) offered to banks Wednesday were undersubscribed, forcing the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to slash next week’s volume to P140 billion.

For the P40-billion seven-day TDF, banks tendered only P27.785 billion, which the BSP accepted at a yield of 3.3-3.4 percent.

For the P110-billion 28-day facility, bids amounted to just P79.59 billion, which the BSP awarded at a yield of 3.449-3.5 percent.

The yields were also up from last week.

Next week, the BSP would still offer P40 billion in the seven-day facility, but would cut by P10 billion to P100 billion the 29-day window.

The BSP had slashed to P150 billion the total TDF volume offered during the month of September from P180 billion previously.

BSP officials earlier said the undersubscribed TDF auctions of late meant that banks have been using their excess liquidity for lending to economy-boosting projects.

Launched in June last year, the weekly TDF auctions form part of the BSP’s implementation of the interest rate corridor aimed at bringing market rates closer to the policy rate of 3 percent. This was to mop up excess liquidity and temper inflation.