Nigeria's central bank offered 2 trillion naira in short-term bills to soak up idle bank cash, and rates on the last auction fell.
The Central Bank of Nigeria offered 2 trillion naira in short-term bills on Thursday, October 22, 2026. The goal is to pull extra cash out of the banking system. Banks have been holding a lot of it, and the central bank wants to reduce that pile.
The bills are called Open Market Operations, or OMO, bills. They are short-term IOUs the central bank sells to banks and investors. When buyers pay for them, cash leaves the banking system. The offer was split evenly: 1 trillion naira in a 138-day bill and 1 trillion naira in a 180-day bill. They mature on March 9, 2027 and April 20, 2027. Bidding ran from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Banks have more cash than usual. Their deposits at the central bank's Standing Deposit Facility, a place where banks park spare money, passed 6 trillion naira earlier in October. That followed about 2.41 trillion naira in repayments on maturing bills on October 13.
Dealers projected 2.067 trillion naira in OMO maturities for the week starting October 19. The new offer equals about 96.8% of that amount.
On October 6, the central bank offered 2 trillion naira. Investors asked for 3.51 trillion naira, and the bank allotted about 3.31 trillion naira. Most of it, 2.67 trillion naira, went to the 182-day bill. That points to stronger demand for the longer bill.
The stop rate is the final rate at which an auction clears. It was 17.22% for the 147-day bill and 16.92% for the 182-day bill. Both were lower than at the September 29 auction. For anyone saving or investing in naira, these rates give a sense of what safe government debt pays.
An offer is not the same as a sale. The effect on bank cash depends on how many bills the central bank actually allots. The final subscription, allotment and stop-rate figures for the October 22 auction are not in the material available. For context, in September the bank sold about 17.51 trillion naira in bills against 10.89 trillion naira in maturities. That pulled out a net 6.62 trillion naira.
Watch the final stop rates from the October 22 auction, since they show whether safe naira returns keep falling.
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