Banking & Finance

CBO raises RO71mn from treasury bills

Oman’s central bank has raised OMR71 million by way of issuing government treasury bills.

The total value of the allotted treasury bills amounted to OMR71 million, for a maturity period of 28 days, from February 21, until March 21, 2018.

he average accepted price reached 99.893 for every OMR100 while the minimum accepted price arrived at 99.890 per OMR100. The average discount rate and the average yield reached 1.39629 per cent and 1.39780 per cent, respectively.

The interest rate on the Repo operations with Central Bank of Oman (CBO) is 2.096 per cent for the period from February 20, to 26, 2018 while the discount rate on the treasury bills discounting facility with CBO is 2.846 per cent for the same period.

The treasury bills are short-term highly secured financial instruments issued by the CBO on behalf of the Government, which helps the licensed commercial banks to gainfully invest their surplus funds, with added advantage of ready liquidity through discounting and repurchase facilities (Repo) offered by the Central Bank.

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.