PHL T-bill rates down Monday

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MANILA — General drop in the rate of the government’s Treasury bill (T-bill) prompted the auction committee of the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) to make a full award across the board Monday.

Rate of the benchmark three-month bill went down to 1.24 percent from 1.37 percent during the auction last August 4.

Rate of the six-month paper stood at 1.65 percent. Last month, the auction committee did not award this tenor but its rate last July is lower at 1.51 percent.

The one year paper’s rate slightly went down to 1.864 percent from the previous month’s 1.869 percent.

The BTr offered a total of P20 billion worth of debt papers with the three-month paper for P8 billion and the six-month and one-year paper at P6 billion each.

Demand was high for the shortest tenor after bids reached P25.542 billion. Tenders for the six-month paper were more than twice the offering at 15.6 billion while it reached P22.685 billion for the one-year bill.

In a statement, the BTr said “the Committee decided to accept all bids for all tenors given the average rates were well within secondary market trading levels.”

Relatively, Auction Committee member and Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said they decided to made a full award after noting that rates offered by the banks was “within the secondary market rates.”

He attributed the drop in the rates to investors’ confidence on the government’s capacity to pay its liabilities.

“It means that investors have full faith in NG (national government) as a borrower,” he said.

Increase in the interest rates of government debt papers failed to sustain its rise and Beltran noted that “so far the desire to push rates up hasn’t appeared yet.”