The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) received on Tuesday bids from local and foreign investors worth $1.15bn to cover the recent tender of local treasury bills (T-bills) denominated in the US currency.
The CBE has put forward this tender of $1bn for 364 days, and it is due on 7 December 2022.
The proceeds of this tender will be directed to pay for a previous tender that the bank put forward on 8 December 2020, through which it obtained $1bn.
Of those offers, the CBE accepted 18 offers, valued at $1bn, with interest ranging between 2.97% as the lowest price and 3% as the highest price, and 2.995% as an average, compared to 2.95%, 3%, and 2.995%, respectively, in a similar bid that the CBE launched on 15 November 2021. The bank rejected other offers that asked for a 4% interest rate.
The Central Bank allows subscription in these bills for each of the 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 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 global money markets.
The return of these dollar-denominated T-bills is determined according to several indicators, the most important of which are the volume of dollar liquidity in the market, the alternative investment opportunities available to local and foreign banks and financial institutions, and the country’s credit rating.
