Muscat: The Central Bank of Oman (CBO) raised OMR70.45 million by way of allotting treasury bills on Monday.
The value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR15 million, for a maturity period of 28 days. The average accepted price reached OMR99.610 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR99.610 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 5.08393 per cent and 5.10383 per cent, respectively.
The value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR10 million, for a maturity period of 91 days. The average accepted price reached OMR98.685 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR98.685 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 5.27445 per cent and 5.34473 per cent, respectively.
The value of the allotted Treasury bills amounted to OMR20 million, for a maturity period of 182 days. The average accepted price reached OMR97.465 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR97.430 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 5.08393 per cent and 5.21618 per cent, respectively.
On the other hand, the value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR25.45 million, for a maturity period of 364 days. The average accepted price reached OMR95.050 for every OMR100, and the minimum accepted price arrived at OMR95.045 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 4.96409 per cent and 5.22265 per cent, respectively.
The 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 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, the 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.