The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) allotted OMO bills totalling N1.7 trillion to foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and deposit money banks (DMBs) that participated at this week’s auctions.
The Apex Bank conducted open market operations twice in the week as the liquidity level in the financial system hovered at an average of N3 trillion net surplus.
The excess funding was bolstered by significant inflows from OMO bills that expired during the week, resulting in an inflow of N1.5 trillion, an investment firm update revealed.
The CBN opened first OMO auction on November 4, 2025, and offered N600 billion across two short-dated tenors to eligible investors.
The CBN offered N300 billion each for 56-day and 84-day maturities. The 84-day paper drew robust interest, attracting subscriptions worth N1.11 trillion – which was over three times oversubscribed – compared to a modest N68 billion subscription for the 56-day bill.
Stop rates settled at 21.69% (56-day) and 21.84% (84-day), within tight bid ranges, as the apex bank allotted N30 billion and N243.6 billion, respectively — a move consistent with its liquidity management strategy.
On Friday, another OMO bills was floated, according to CardinalStone Securities Limited.
In its note, Afrinvest Securities Limited reported that the Apex bank sold ₦1.7tn worth of OMO bills across two auctions this week (offer: ₦1.2tn) at a clearing rate range of 21.6% – 21.8%.
Notably, a total subscription of ₦2.5tn was recorded across tenors, translating to a bid-to-offer of 2.1x.
Also, CBN placed an offer of ₦650.0 billion worth of Nigerian Treasury bills for subscription across standard tenors. The breakdown showed that the CBN opened 91 -day bills totalling ₦100 billion for subscription, and 182 -day worth of local treasury bills worth ₦100 billion was on offer.
The authority also opened a 364 -day bill worth ₦450 billion for subscription midweek. The auction was met with strong interest, with an average overall bid-to-offer ratio of 1.8x, up from 1.2x seen at the previous outing, with demand skewed towards long-dated papers (2.5x).
In comparison, the subscription rate stood at 0.3x and 0.1x on the short- and mid-dated offers. To consummate, the CBN sold ₦31.2bn (91 -day), ₦10.2bn (182 -day) and ₦504.9bn (364 -day) bills at unchanged stop rates of 15.3% and 15.5% for the shorter tenors.
Meanwhile, the 364 -day bills rate dipped by 10 bps to 16.0%. Overall, the CBN took 46.4% of total subscriptions and 84.0% of the total amount offered across all tenors.