The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is set to offer N900 billion in Nigerian Treasury Bills on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, acting on behalf of the Debt Management Office (DMO). The sale marks the first NTB auction of the fourth quarter and is dominated by the one-year instrument.
According to the auction notice, the DMO will offer N100 billion each in 91-day and 182-day bills alongside N700 billion in 364-day bills. Settlement is scheduled for Thursday, October 8. The apex bank also indicated that the indicative NTB issuance calendar for the quarter will be published later.
The 364-day paper accounts for about 77.8% of the total offer, while the two shorter tenors each represent roughly 11.1%. The composition continues the DMO's recent preference for longer-dated bills, which have also drawn the largest share of investor demand.
The auction arrives after a sustained decline in rates. The one-year stop rate stood at 15.89% at recent auctions, following a 350-basis-point cut by the Monetary Policy Committee that brought the Monetary Policy Rate to 23.00%.
At the September 23 auction, total subscriptions across the three tenors reached N4.23 trillion, though the DMO allotted only N497.59 billion. The 364-day bill attracted N4.09 trillion, about 97% of total demand, while its stop rate fell 73 basis points to 15.89%. The 91-day and 182-day bills were undersubscribed at 0.55 and 0.82 times their offer sizes, with stop rates of 15.50% and 15.80%.
The one-year stop rate has fallen 146 basis points over four consecutive auctions from 16.84% on September 2, and it is now 181 basis points below its third-quarter peak of 17.70% recorded on July 8.
During the third quarter, the DMO allotted about N8.14 trillion across eight NTB auctions, roughly 40.34% above the N5.8 trillion targeted for the period.
Liquidity conditions remain supportive of fixed-income demand. Investors submitted N12.14 trillion in bids at the final two September Open Market Operations auctions against N3.4 trillion offered, and banks held more than N4.6 trillion at the CBN's Standing Deposit Facility as of October 2.
