By Lee C. Chipongian
The 7-day term deposit facility (TDF) auction fetched a lower rate of 2.2516 percent on Wednesday while tenders reached P273.75 billion against offer of P150 billion.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is still only offering the 7-day tenor and not the 14- and 28-day TDF which was last bidded on March 18.
The P150-billion volume is the highest offer for the lone tenor.
This week’s auction, in the meantime, attracted more bids than the previous P242.05 billion while the average rate was lower than last week’s 2.2543 percent.
The BSP’s decision to temporarily cancel certain TDF tenors is part of their COVID-19 pandemic response measures.
The last TDF auction pre-enhanced community quarantine was March 11. The BSP said it will resume the other two tenors’ activity if the market demands it.
The TDF is one of the central bank’s key liquidity absorption facility.