The Central Bank of Nigeria made a record sale of N1 trillion treasury bills at an Auction on Wednesday.
This is according to CBN’s bi-weekly treasury bills auction, held on Wednesday before the February 26 and 27 Monetary Policy Committee meeting.
The auction on Wednesday marked a significant escalation in the volume of treasury bills, with about N1 trillion up for auction.
This includes N600 billion allocated for the 364-day bills and N200 billion each for the 182-day and 91-day bills.
The N600 billion earmarked for the 364-day tenure represents an unprecedented figure, and the cumulative N1 trillion sale is unparalleled, with records dating back to 2001.
In a recent auction held last month, the CBN sold treasury bills totalling N381.2 billion across various maturities of 91, 182, and 364 days.
The interest rates for these 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.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s money supply stood at over N78 trillion as of December 2023, a factor many analysts attribute to the nation’s accelerating inflation, which was 28.92 per cent in December.