The (usually) six-week liquidity discount T-bills are designed to manage the central governmentʼs short-term liquidity needs, and, accordingly, are auctioned on a case-by-case basis.

The bills expire on December 30, after the big year-end tax payment deadlines but before year-end thus providing liquidity without raising year-end government debt.

ÁKK tends to keep year-end issues low and repayments high to keep the year-end gross state debt ratio on a falling trend.

In a usual late-autumn pattern, the debt manager has cut back its three-month and, to a lesser degree, its twelve-month bill auction offers since the middle of September. Demand for the papers fell, however, even more sharply, and the last four weeks saw several undersubscribed bill auction after the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) lengthened the term of its key sterilization instrument, replacing its former two-week deposits with three-month deposits late September. The new three-month central bank deposits pay the central bank base rate, 1.35% at present. The base rate is well over the three-month average auction yield which bottomed out at 0.38% annually in the middle of September and rose to 0.72% at the last auction on Tuesday.