The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) received, on Monday, 43 offers from local and foreign investors, worth €888.3m, to buy Euro-denominated Treasury bills (T-bills).
The CBE had launched a tender to sell €690m 364-day T-bills on 9 November 2021, to pay for older issuance worth €695m that was made in November 2019.
The CBE accepted 37 of those offers, worth €698.3m, at an interest that ranged between 1.35% and 1.4%, averaging 1.396%. This compared to the 1.410%, 1.45%, and 1.443%, respectively, that was recorded in the last similar tender in August 2020. Some institutions requested a return of 2.10%, which was rejected by the CBE.
The CBE had started offering Euro-denominated T-bills on 28 August 2012, with the first return granted by the Ministry of Finance on those bills coming in at 3.25%.
It allows subscriptions for Euro-denominated T-bills from local banks and foreign institutions, with a minimum subscription of €100,000 and its multiples.
Banks can subscribe to T-bills by submitting bids to the CBE, indicating the amount they wish to buy and the interest rate before the CBE collects all bids for study and accept the appropriate ones.
Banks operating in the local market rely heavily on these T-bills to invest their liquidity in Euros in a container guaranteed by the government. These come at a suitable return, in light of the lack of other investment aspects of that liquidity, except for rare joint loans, or investment in the global money markets.
