The official site of Italy's central bank

Types of government securities and issuing techniques

The Treasury issues the following securities:
• Ordinary Treasury Bills (BOT): “discounted” securities issued with a maturity of 3, 6 and 12 months or other maturities in order to deal with temporary cash imbalances;
• Zero Coupon Treasury certificates (CTZ): “discounted” securities with a maturity of 24 months;
• Variable Coupon Treasury certificates (CCT): securities with a maturity of 7 years and semi-annual coupons based on the yield at issue of six-month BOTs, issued in the tender prior to the date on which the coupon starts to mature;
• Treasury Bonds (BTP): securities with fixed semi-annual coupons and maturities of 3, 5, 10, 15 and 30 years;
• Indexed Treasury Bonds (BTPi): variable rate securities for which the semi-annual coupons and the capital reimbursed at maturity are revalued on the basis of inflation in the Euro area, measured by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), excluding tobacco; they are issued with maturities of 5, 10 and 30 years.

The main issuing technique used for the placement/buy-back of domestic securities is the tender. The MEF decrees authorising the issue of securities require placement operations to be carried out by the Bank of Italy, which stipulates appropriate agreements with market operators after ascertaining that they meet the legal and technical requirements set out in the decrees.

The tender operations are carried out according to an annual calendar drawn up by the Treasury at the beginning of each year and containing the dates on which the announcement, the tender and the settlement operations for new securities issues will take place.

All phases of the tender procedure (announcement to market participants, sending of offers, allotment, communication of results, settlement instructions) are fully automatic. Two different methods are currently used to calculate the allotment price:
- competitive tenders for BOTs,
- marginal tenders for medium and long-term securities.

In competitive tenders, each successful participant pays the price stated in the offer; in marginal tenders, all the successful offers are satisfied at the marginal price (this auction technique is also called “uniform price”, as there is a single allotment price for all successful participants).

The allotment of indexed BTPs is carried out using the marginal system, with the Treasury retaining the right to exclude offers at inappropriate prices and deciding the amount to be allotted within the limit set in the decree.

Once the tender results have been calculated, the Bank of Italy distributes them to the tender participants, to the press, and to economic-financial information networks.