The auction of the central bank’s 28-day securities on Friday, June 2, received P112.63 billion bids against the offer of P140 billion on lower yields.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Francisco G. Dakila Jr. said the “results of (Friday’s) BSP bill auction came as market participants managed their cash flows and tended to client requirements.”
Total bids of P112.63 billion was significantly lower than the previous auction’s P172.06 billion.
The 28-day tenor was offered at P140 billion, higher than the previous Friday’s P120 billion. The BSP only awarded P110.63 billion.
Tenders were 0.804x of the volume offered while the bid coverage ratio was at 0.8045 from 1.4228 last week.
Meanwhile, the yield dropped to 6.6746 percent or 0.1542 basis point lower compared to the average rate last May 26. The range of yields accepted widened slightly to 6.6000 percent to 6.7350 percent this week.
The BSP bills is part of the central bank’s interest rate corridor system. The facility is one of BSP’s primary tools to manage inflation by controlling the amount of liquidity in the financial system.
Since it was first offered in September 2020, the BSP securities only had one tenor, the 28-day, which used to be the 28-day term deposit facility.
On June 30, the BSP announced Friday that it will start to offer a longer-dated securities of 56-day.
The additional tenor will increase the central bank’s flexibility to respond to the changing liquidity conditions as it narrows the gap between short-term market interest rates and the BSP rate.
The introduction of the 56-day tenor is also in preparation for the eventual reduction in banks’ reserve requirement ratio.