CBO issues treasury bills worth OMR35 million

Muscat: The Central Bank of Oman (CBO) raised OMR35 million by way of allotting treasury bills.

The value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR20 million, for a maturity period of 28 days.The average accepted price reached OMR99.665 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR99.665 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 4.36696 per cent and 4.38164 per cent, respectively.

Whereas, the value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR15 million, for a maturity period of 91 days. The average accepted price reached OMR98.767 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR89.765 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 4.94689 per cent and 5.00866 per cent, respectively.

Treasury bills are short-term highly secured financial instruments issued by the Ministry of Finance, and they provide licensed commercial banks the opportunity to invest their surplus funds. The Central Bank of Oman (CBO) acts as the Issue Manager and provides the added advantage of ready liquidity through discounting and repurchase facilities (Repo).

It may be noted that the interest rate on the Repo operations with CBO is 5.75 per cent while the discount rate on the Treasury Bills Discounting Facility with CBO is 6.25 per cent.

Furthermore, treasury bills promote the local money market by creating a benchmark yield curve for short-term interest rates. Additionally, the government may also resort to this instrument whenever felt necessary for financing its recurrent expenditures.