Treasury partially awards T-bills as banks set aside cash for Holy Week break

MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of the Treasury partially awarded the T-bills it offered Monday, capping the rates for the two longer tenors with tempered demand as banks set aside cash for their customers’ withdrawals during the Holy Week break.

The Treasury sold all P4 billion in the benchmark 91-day debt paper at 5.612 percent, down from 5.635 percent last week.

For the 182-day Treasury bill, the average rate was capped at 5.982 percent, up from 5.958 percent in the previous auction, such that the Treasury awarded only P2.76 billion out of the P5-billion offering.

As for the 364-day IOUs, the Treasury sold P4.315 billion out of the P6 billion it offered at 6.052 percent, up from last week’s annual rate of 5.961 percent.

Across the three tenors, the Treasury awarded a total of P11.075 billion out of the P15-billion offering.

Tenders totaled P20.856 billion, making the auction oversubscribed.

“The demand actually came in at the 91-day and the tenders just barely covered the offer sizes for the 182- and 364-day T-bills so the decision of the committee was to cut the auction for the latter two tenors at the rate where the market came in more,” Deputy Treasurer Erwin D. Sta. Ana told reporters after the auction.

Also, Sta. Ana said the muted demand for the two longer tenors came on the back of “muted trading in the past days because of the short working week this week [due to Tuesday’s holiday] and next [due to Holy Week], so banks also would need certain liquidity to service off client requirements.”