Government raises €500m at record low interest rate

The Government has raised €500 million in 11-month borrowings at an interest rate of minus 0.54 per cent, a record low for such funding.

The National Treasury Management Agency announced that the money was raised on Thursday morning via an auction of treasury bills to investors.

The low interest rate sees investors who hold the bills to maturity paying the Government for doing so. The bills mature on June 22nd, 2020.

The minus 0.54 per cent rate is the lowest on record, surpassing the previous record low of minus 0.53 per cent achieved in a treasury bill auction in March 2018.

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Oversubscribed

The NTMA said that for the latest loans it had received bids amounting to €1.525 billion – 3.05 times the target amount.

The low interest rates have offered significant advantages for the State in raising borrowings to refinance maturing loans. In June the NTMA raised €1 billion in 10-year borrowings at a rate of just under 0.3 per cent.

Raising new cash at lower interest rates slowly reduces the average interest rates paid on all borrowings and delivers significant benefits to the exchequer.