The Nigerian Treasury Bills (NTB) also known as T-bills is one of the money securities in which the country raises funds to finance capital projects or for any other government expenditures.
In other words, Treasury Bills are government debt securities, they are only issued by the government of a nation.
They are issued by the nation’s apex bank ie The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The CBN also offers T-Bills for subscriptions in order to control the money supply (M1 and M2), thereby regulating and cushioning the inflation rate.
Treasury Bills have a definite duration time period and fixed interest rates which varies according to the one an investor is willing to invest in.
The maturity period of T-bills varies from 91 days, 182 days, and 364 days ie it has an estimated maturity period of 3, 6, and 12 months.
Aside from the Nigerian Treasury Bills (NTB), other short and long terms government securities include; Nigerian Treasury Certificates, FGN Bonds, Sukub Bonds (Islamic Bond), Federal Government Development Stocks (FRNDS).
Investing in T-Bills is wholly secured as both the investors’ principal and interest gained will be fully paid when due as compared to other investments. Such investments also default risk-free.
In order to solve the bureaucratic challenges associated with Treasury Bills Investment, an Inter-brokerage services firm, Parthian Partners Limited created a technological mobile application called I-Invest.
With this application, potential T-bills investors can at the comfort of their homes and offices place a bid and invest without going to the brokerage firm’s physical office or Banks.
This further helps to break the entry barriers for newbies as they will now trade like professionals.
The investors will simply log in to Google Playstore and download the I-Invest mobile application, create an account with them and start investing.
Earlier the minimum that investors are required to invest is N10,000 but that was re-modified to N50 million in the year 2017.
Investing in Treasury Bills occurs in two major platforms ie the primary market and the secondary market.
Since many investors can’t invest the minimum CBN’s requirements, Banks offered an alternative platform by pooling the investment together up to the tonne of N50 million and investing on behalf of their customers.
So for one to invest, you will visit your Bank, request and fill the Treasury bills pooled form and make a request for the estimated investment amount to be deducted from your account after which you will receive a notification that your investment was successful or that it has failed.
It is highly recommended for one to invest in Treasury Bills instead of leaving the money in one’s bank account and receive less interest from the Banks at the of the month. Other benefits of T-bills include; they are tax free and they can easily be converted into disposable cash.