The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday issued a new round of Open Market Operation (OMO) bills at the primary market, offering two tenors to domestic banks and foreign portfolio investors at spot rates of 22.73% for the longer-dated bills and 22.69% for the shorter tenor.
The apex bank opened the auction with a target of ₦500 billion, available to qualified market participants, including commercial banks and offshore investors. This move followed a previous auction on Friday, where the CBN successfully raised around ₦1.01 trillion.
As part of ongoing efforts to enhance the appeal of naira-denominated assets and attract foreign portfolio inflows, the monetary authority elevated interest rates, prompting the auction to surpass expectations as investors continued to take strategic positions.
Market analysts, citing auction results, noted that the bills were oversubscribed by a factor of 2.1x, translating to a total subscription of ₦1.06 trillion—compared to ₦1.39 trillion in total bids recorded in the previous round.
The tenors at this latest auction differed slightly from those in the previous offering. The central bank allotted a cumulative total of ₦804.85 billion worth of OMO instruments across two maturity profiles, with stop rates finalising at 22.69% for the 329-day tenor and 22.73% for the 350-day tenor.
Notably, the stop rate on the 298-day bill climbed by 3.18 percentage points to 22.37%, while the rate on the 319-day paper surged by 3.28 percentage points to close at 22.73%.
 on Tuesday issued a new round of Open Market Operation (OMO) bills at the primary market, offering two...){kind=link}