N331bn inflow from matured Treasury Bills to save interbank market

The interbank market last week witnessed a huge outflow of cash which led to scarcity of funds that stopped at N331 billion inflows from payment of matured treasury bills.

According to Vanguard, “investigations revealed that the amount of idle cash in the market fell from N633 billion on Monday to zero at the end of business on Tuesday as banks diverted the idle cash to participate in foreign exchange sales by the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN)”.

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Data from Financial Market Dealers Quote (FMDQ) show that cost of unsecured lending rose from 0.67 percent on Monday to 7.17 percent on Tuesday and further to 8.61 percent on Wednesday. Similarly, cost of Over-night lending rose from 1.08 percent on Monday to 8.08 percent on Tuesday and further to 9.25 percent on Wednesday.

Bureau de Change operators also confirmed that the dollar is scarce, leading to more concerns.