The Debt Management Office (DMO), in conjunction with the CBN, sharply cut stop rates across all three Treasury Bills (NTB) tenors at its Wednesday, September 23, 2026, primary market auction, a day after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) cut its Monetary Policy Rate by 350 basis points to 23.00%.
The DMO, with the CBN, allotted N497.59 billion against an offer size of N600 billion, despite massive N4.23 trillion in subscriptions across the three tenors.
The 364-day bill accounted for N4.09 trillion, or roughly 97% of total demand, even as its stop rate fell 73 basis points to 15.89%.
The results show a rapid repricing of government securities following the CBN’s move toward monetary easing, reversing the elevated yield environment seen through July and August.
The three Treasury Bills recorded substantial declines in stop rates at the auction, with the 91-day bill recording the largest cut of 80 basis points. The 182-day and 364-day bills followed with declines of 70 and 73 basis points respectively.
The 91-day bill was therefore the most sharply discounted against its secondary-market level, while the 182-day bill cleared just 10 basis points below the secondary-market rate.
The September 23 auction extends the easing trend recorded at the September 9 and September 16 auctions. At the September 9 auction, the CBN allotted N1.05 trillion as the 364-day NTB stop rate fell to 16.62%, marking the third consecutive cut on the tenor, as Nairametrics reported.
By contrast, the 91-day and 182-day bills were undersubscribed, receiving 0.55 times and 0.82 times their respective offer sizes.
Investor appetite has remained concentrated in the 364-day bill since the CBN began its campaign of monetary policy tightening in 2023 with irresistibly robust yields. But now, the hawkish monetary policy is beginning to shift toward repricing government’s securities.
The DMO’s decision to allot N447.07 billion on the 364-day tenor while cutting the stop rate signals a lower borrowing-cost environment as interest rates transition downward. The move came despite the DMO receiving N4.23 trillion in total subscriptions across the three tenors.
The September 23 results therefore highlight how quickly the fixed-income market is responding to the CBN’s 350-basis-point rate cut, with implications for government borrowing costs and the broader pricing of fixed-income assets.
