CBE to issue $540m worth treasury bills

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) will issue, on Monday, a bid of local treasury bills denominated in the US currency, at a value of $540m, for a period of 364 days, due on 6 June 2023.

The proceeds of this bid are directed to pay off a previous bid that the CBE put forward on 8 June 2021, through which it obtained $540m. 

The CBE received 31 offers from local and foreign investors, worth $1.31bn to cover a similar bid that the bank put forward on 28 April. According to the CBE, the bank accepted 25 offers worth $1.0168bn, with interest ranging between 2.97% as the lowest price, 3% as the highest price, and 2.997% as an average, while it rejected other offers that asked for 3.9% interest rate.

The CBE allows subscription in these bills for local banks and foreign institutions, with a minimum subscription of $100,000 and its multiples.

Banks subscribe to dollar bills in the same manner as in local currency bills, where each bank submits its bid to the Central Bank, indicating the amount to be subscribed to in the bills and the interest rate it requests. Bids are collected at the Central Bank for study and acceptance of the appropriate ones.

Banks operating in the local market rely a lot on these bills to invest their US dollar liquidity in a container guaranteed by the government, with an appropriate return, in the absence of other investment aspects for that liquidity, except for the rare joint loans that are offered between separate periods, or investing in the money markets.