FG raised over N50bn via savings bond –DMO
By Chukwuma Umeorah
The Debt Management Office (DMO) on Thursday, revealed that it raised a total of N50.2 billion through FGN Savings Bond from about 35,000 subscribers so far.
The Director General, DMO, Patience Oniha, stated this during the NGX Savings Bond webinar 2023 organised by the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) in collaboration with Optimus by Afrinvest and CSL Stockbrokers in Lagos.
Commending the NGX for its role in enlightening retail investors of the opportunity that exists in fixed income securities market especially with respect to the FGN savings bond, Oniha said that the DMO uses the FGN bond benchmark yield curve to price the savings bond to ensure that retail investors earn comparable returns.
Oniha who was represented by the Director, Market Development Department at DMO, Monday Usiade, said that the DMO has raised a total of N50.2 billion through FGN Savings bond from about 35,000 subscribers.
“Several countries have made enquiries on the FGN savings bond to the DMO and some are actually working to introduce similar products in their jurisdictions. Across Africa, Kenya has something similar to what we are doing here in Nigeria.
The DMO has raised a total of N50.2 billion through FGN Savings bonds from about 35,000 subscribers. We have witnessed a significant increase in the last couple of years based on the introduction of FGN Securities’ issuance and aware- ness programme and I want to emphasize that the number we have appears low to us as 35,000 subscribers is still far low as to what we want to achieve”, Oniha said.
She revealed that the DMO and the Central Securities and Clearing System (CSCS) has been working on the subscription portal for FGN savings bonds while adding that test-running and trading have been completed.
“The DMO hopes to launch and deploy the retail securities bond portal in due course. It is hoped that the portal will ease the solution process and also provide maiden add-on benefits to investors when operational. The main concern of the DMO at this stage has to be with market liquidity and I am very happy to note that it is one of the issues that will be discussed as we want to see more traction, activity in the secondary mar- ket side of the FGN savings bond”, Oniha said.
