U S Government Accountability Office

Debt Management - Floating Rate Notes Can Help Treasury Meet Borrowing Goals, But Additional Actions Are Needed to Help Manage Risk U S Government Accountability Office

" To continue meeting its goal of financing the federal government's borrowing needs at the lowest cost over time, Treasury began issuing a new type of security-a 2-year floating rate note (FRN)-in January 2014. The FRN pays interest at a rate that resets periodically based on changes in the rate of the 13-week Treasury bill (to which the FRN is indexed). GAO was asked to review Treasury debt management, including this product and other debt management issues. This report (1) evaluates Treasury's rationale for introducing FRNs and (2) identifies the demand for Treasury securities from a broad range of investors to assess whether changes would help Treasury meet its goals. To address these objectives, GAO used Treasury auction data from 1980 - 2014 to simulate the costs of Treasury FRNs, reviewed Treasury documents, surveyed a non-generalizable sample of 82 large domestic institutional investors across sectors, and interviewed market participants and academic experts. (For the survey and results, see GAO-14-562SP.) "