CBO issues treasury bills worth OMR25.7 million

Muscat: The Central Bank of Oman (CBO) raised OMR25.7 million by way of allotting treasury bills on Monday.

The value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR8.2 million, for a maturity period of 28 days. The average accepted price reached OMR99.602 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR99.600 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 5.19362 per cent and 5.21441 per cent, respectively.

Whereas, the value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR17.5 million, for a maturity period of 91 days. The average accepted price reached OMR98.669 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR98.665 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 5.33805 per cent and 5.41005 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 6.00 per cent while the discount rate on the Treasury Bills Discounting Facility with CBO is 6.50 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.