Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The interest rates on two treasury bills (T-bills) have been increased by 0.51 per cent following the latest upward adjustment of the interest rate on Repo, treasury officials said.

On Wednesday, the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, increased its key policy interest rate after more than three years aiming to curb inflationary pressures on economy.

“We have offered higher interest rates on T-bills after increasing interest rate on Repo by the central bank,” a senior treasury official of a private commercial bank told BBN in Dhaka.

The 33rd auction of treasury bills (T-bills) of different maturities was held on Sunday with offering of BDT 2.50 billion and BDT 2.63 billion in grand total BDT 5.13 billion for the 91-day and 364-day bills respectively.

Of those, BDT 900 million and BDT 1.03 billion in grand total BDT 1.93 billion were accepted respectively for the 91-day and 364-day bills, according to the central bank press statement.

BDT 1.59 billion and BDT 1.47 billion were devolved on primary dealers (PDs) for the 91-day and 364-day bills.

The range of implicit yield (generally known as interest rate) of accepted bids were 7.81-7.85 per cent and 8.51-8.55 per cent per annum respectively, the statement added.

On September 14 last, the range of implicit yield of accepted bids were 7.75-7.81 per cent and 8.03-8.06 per cent per annum respectively.

Currently, three T-bills are being transacted through auctions to adjust the government borrowing from the banking system.

The T-bills have 91-day, 182-day and 364-day maturity periods.

The central bank earlier dropped the 28-day tenure T-bill from its auction system in line with the cash and debt management committee’s recommendation.

A high-powered committee on cash and debt management, headed by the finance secretary, is now working on the separation of the cash management from that of the public debt management.

On the other hand, four government bonds – 5-year, 10-year, 15-year and 20-year –are being traded in the markets.

BBN/SI/SS/AD-22September08-5:21PM (BST)