Over 50% of MSS auctioned by RBI so far

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has auctioned over 50% of the Rs 6 lakh crore Market Stabilisation Scheme bonds since its ceiling was revised upwards.

In a move to facilitate liquidity management operations, the RBI revised the ceiling for the issue of securities under the MSS to Rs 6 lakh crore from the earlier Rs 30,000 crore. The move would help it rein in excess liquidity from the system after demonetisation which had seen banks getting high cash deposits.

Since December 2, the RBI has completed four auctions amounting to Rs 3.20 lakh crore. Most of them were Cash Management Bills (CMB) which had the generic character of Treasury Bills. 

As can be seen in the data above, the central bank conducted three MSS auctions worth Rs 2 lakh crore on December 9, while two of Rs 60000 crore each were done on December 5 and December 6. 

The tenor of these auctions were different from each other and so was their implicit yield at cut-off price rate. 

RBI will conduct another auction for CMBs worth Rs 50,000 crore on Tuesday. The bids for the auction should be submitted in electronic format on the central bank's core banking solution (E-Kuber) system between 230 and 3 pm.

So far, since then MSS ceiling was raised, Rs 3.70 lakh crore has been offered for auction by the RBI.