THE Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) made a full award on the 35-day treasury bills auctioned yesterday amid strong market demand for the government IOU.
The auction was more than four times oversubscribed, with total bids reaching P62.2 billion, versus the P15 billion offering.
This prompted the auction committee to open the tap facility window for another P10 billion.
“Strong liquidity since P120 billion redemption still to be deployed. (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) Gov. (Benjamin) Diokno also sounded BSP has a lot of arsenal for the war against COVID-19,” Rosalia de Leon, national treasurer, told reporters via Viber after the auction yesterday.
“And of course this is just 35-day tenor, so might as well earn some interest while banks still risk averse,” she added.
The short-term paper fetched an average of 2.714 percent.
Meanwhile, de Leon said the collections remitted by the Bureaus of Internal Revenue and of Customs since April 1 have been lower than the previous year’s level.
“It can be covered from other collections and borrowings, (such as) dividends and other contributions, even BTr income,” de Leon said.
