The 4 November seven-day repo: a read on liquidity after the 39% reserve rule

November 4, 2026

Wordless fine-line illustration: A harbour pilot station where a single weekly tide gate lets a shrinking channel of water through while a large locked basin beside it stays full

Banco de Moçambique’s calendar puts a seven-day operation and a Treasury-bill session on the same Wednesday, five months after the reserve ratio rose ten points.

On Wednesday 4 November Banco de Moçambique is scheduled to run a Treasury-bill session of Type A together with its seven-day repo and reverse-repo operation, according to its second-half 2026 intervention calendar. The number to read is the reverse-repo allotment, and the benchmark is September’s opening-week figure of MT142.74bn.

That figure sits well below the MT187.51bn banks placed in the first week of March. The gap marks how much liquidity the central bank has no longer needed to absorb since it raised the reserve ratio on meticais from 29% to 39% in May.

A calendar with fixed Wednesdays

The date is set; the size of the offer is announced by the bank.

The intervention calendar for the second half lists the seven-day operation on every Wednesday through December. The first Wednesday of November pairs it with a Type A bill auction. A week earlier, on 28 October, the calendar adds a one-month reverse repo, and 30 October carries an additional bill session.

Nothing has yet been allotted for 4 November. This is a scheduled operation, and its result will be known only when the bank publishes it.

What the auction series shows through September

Take-up follows the offer almost to the metical, so the offer is the signal.

The auction series on the money-market page records seven-day reverse-repo allotments of MT193.85bn on 6 May, MT158.98bn on 20 May and MT134.19bn on 27 May, two days after the 25 May announcement. Then MT138.33bn on 3 June, MT150.74bn on 1 July, MT152.70bn on 5 August and MT142.74bn on 2 September. The low for the period was MT99.86bn on 22 July, and the latest, on 23 September, was MT110.20bn.

From May onward the bank’s offer was filled to within 1% on every date except the last. On 23 September it offered MT115.3bn and banks took MT110.20bn, 95.6%. A shortfall of that size may signal that some banks had no spare meticais to place.

The mechanism: a rule that moves cash into a different drawer

A higher reserve ratio holds cash at the central bank permanently, not for seven days.

O País reported on 25 May that the committee held the policy rate at 9.25% and lifted the reserve coefficient on national-currency liabilities from 29% to 39%, while keeping the foreign-currency ratio at 29.5%. Governor Rogério Zandamela later attributed the lower liquidity in the system to that increase, according to RTP.

For every 100 meticais subject to the requirement, 39 must now stay at the central bank, as O Económico put it. Cash held there as a requirement cannot also be placed in the weekly auction. A bank that once placed a surplus in a seven-day reverse repo at 9.25% now has less surplus, so the weekly allotment shrinks even though the policy rate has not moved.

Longer tenors are shrinking too

The one-month tranche has fallen from MT28bn to about MT10bn to MT15bn.

In February the bank allotted MT28.0bn of 28-day paper, and in March MT27.25bn of 35-day paper. In May the 28-day allotment was MT10.05bn, in June MT15.3bn for 35 days, in July MT10.5bn for 28 days and in August MT15.5bn for 35 days. The calendar’s 28 October entry gives the next reading. If it is again in the MT10bn to MT15bn range, the 4 November seven-day number is probably the cleaner guide to conditions.

What a treasurer should check on 4 November

Compare three numbers: the allotment, the share of the offer taken and the Treasury-bill result the same day.

A rise above September’s MT142.74bn would suggest liquidity is rebuilding. A figure under MT110bn would show the squeeze deepening. Read that alongside the Type A auction on the same day, because a bank that places less in reverse repos has more reason to bid for bills.

Corporate treasurers with surplus meticais should ask their bank for the seven-day reverse-repo level before the operation and for the yield it will earn afterwards. Borrowers should read a falling allotment as a sign that funding is tight, and agree term facilities before the year-end rush.