The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) achieved a landmark sale of N1 trillion treasury bills at its bi-weekly auction held on Wednesday, setting a new record in the country’s financial landscape.
The auction witnessed an unprecedented volume of treasury bills, with approximately N1 trillion offered for sale. This allocation comprised N600 billion for the 364-day bills and N200 billion each for the 182-day and 91-day bills.
The staggering N600 billion earmarked for the 364-day tenure marked a significant escalation, and the cumulative N1 trillion sale stands unparalleled in CBN’s auction history, with records dating back to 2001.
This remarkable achievement comes on the heels of a recent auction held last month, where the CBN sold treasury bills worth N381.2 billion across various maturities of 91, 182, and 364 days.
During the previous auction, interest rates for the different maturities were recorded at 5 per cent for the 91-day bills, 7.15 per cent for the 182-day bills, and 11.54 per cent for the 364-day bills, respectively.
Nigeria’s money supply surged to over N78 trillion as of December 2023, a trend attributed by many analysts to the nation’s accelerating inflation rate, which reached 28.92 per cent in December.
