The Central Bank's Last Quarterly Auction Went Undersubscribed by 1.51 Million Dollars

The National Bank of Ethiopia sold 123.49 million dollars to commercial banks at its foreign-exchange auction on 23 September, against 125 million dollars on offer. All 27 participating banks were successful, and 1.51 million dollars went unallocated.

This was the final auction of the quarterly programme fact.et reported on 22 September — a 500-million-dollar sequence that now ends with no successor announced.

Demand fell short, and that is the number

For the first time in this programme, the auction did not clear. Every bank that bid got what it asked for, and the central bank was left holding 1.51 million dollars it had intended to sell.

An undersubscribed auction says one of two things. Either banks are holding enough foreign currency that they did not need this window, or the price at which the NBE was willing to sell no longer beats what a bank can source elsewhere. Neither reading is bad news on its own, and the shortfall is 1.2 percent of the offer — small enough that it could be a single large bidder sitting out.

What makes it worth watching is the timing: the programme's last auction is the one that failed to clear, and the market now has no scheduled central bank window to plan against.

The liquidity question behind it

Addis Fortune noted this week that the central bank was still listing 3 September as both its most recent liquidity-absorbing operation — which took 40 billion Birr from five participants at 3.25 percent — and as its next auction date. That leaves it unclear whether that money had returned to the banking system before Wednesday's FX auction.

If 40 billion Birr was still sitting at the central bank when banks came to bid for dollars, the undersubscription has a mechanical explanation rather than a signalling one.

Open

The NBE has not announced what replaces the quarterly programme, nor published the weighted average rate at this auction. The Birr benchmark set by these auctions has been the market's reference point since the July 2024 float; without a scheduled window, it is not clear what banks will price against. The central bank has also not clarified the status of the 3 September liquidity operation.

Sources: Birr Metrics, 23 September 2026, Addis Fortune, 24 September 2026