Increase in outstanding amount of Treasury Bills

On Thursday, April 9, the ECB announced its weekly Main Refinancing Operation. This attracted bids for €249.41 billion from euro area eligible counterparties, at a fixed rate equivalent to the prevailing main refinancing rate of 1.25 per cent.

On Tuesday, April 14, the Eurosystem and the Swiss National Bank conducted a EUR/CHF foreign exchange swap, with a seven-day maturity, to provide Swiss franc liquidity against the euro. This operation attracted bids for €44.00 billion. As this exceeded the intended volume of €25 billion, participating counterparties received 56.82 per cent of the amounts bid for. This operation was conducted at a fixed price of -2.66 swap points.

The following day, the ECB announced a supplementary Longer-Term Refinancing Operation with a maturity of 84 days. In this LTRO, the ECB received bids for €13.15 billion, at a fixed rate equivalent to the ECB's main refinancing rate of 1.25 per cent.

On the same day, the ECB, in conjunction with the US Federal Reserve, conducted a seven-day US dollar funding operation through collateralised lending. This attracted bids for $73.77 billion, which amount was allotted in full at a fixed rate of 1.19 per cent.

The amounts bid for in the MRO and LTRO euro operations were allotted in full in accordance with the ECB's press release dated March 5.

In the domestic primary market for Treasury Bills, the Treasury invited tenders for 91-day bills maturing on July 17. Bids for €79.13 million were submitted, with the Treasury accepting €47.38 million. Since €20.12 million worth of bills matured during the week, the outstan-ding balance of Treasury bills increased by €27.26 million to €586.58 million.

The yield resulting from the auction was 2.019 per cent, that is, 13.3 basis points less than that on bills with a similar tenor issued on April 3. This decrease in the 91-day Treasury Bill yield reflected the impact of the 25 basis point cut in the ECB's main refinancing rate effective from April 8. The latest yield represented a bid price of 99.4922 per 100 nominal.

Today the Treasury will invite tenders for 91-day bills maturing on July 24.

Treasury Bill trading on the Malta Stock Exchange amounted to €6.45 million during the week, with €5.85 million trades being conducted by the Central Bank of Malta in its role as market maker and €0.60 million trades being conducted by other brokers. Off-exchange transactions amounted to €0.58 million.