NTMA raises €500m at cheapest rate ever for Irish bonds

The National Treasury Management Agency sold €500 million of short-term debt, known as Treasury Bills, in an auction on Thursday, with the notes priced to yield a negative rate of 0.43 per cent.

That means that investors in the 12-month notes are paying the State’s debt agency a 0.43 per cent rate for the privilege of holding their money.

Bond-buying programme

The rate is the cheapest money the NTMA has ever issued, coming in slightly wider than the 0.42 per cent negative rate attached to one-year Bills sold by the agency last December.

The European Central Bank’s €2.3 trillion bond-buying programme, or quantitative easing, is responsible for driving short- to medium-term interest rates across the euro zone into negative territory in recent years.

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