Economic Observer reporter Lao Yingying

In recent days, Ms. Ou, who is nearing retirement, has experienced the "most exaggerated" experience of buying savings treasury bond.

At 8:30 am on April 10th, Ms. Ou stayed in her mobile banking and clicked on "purchase" on time. The screen couldn't jump for a while, so she waited for two minutes before finally entering the purchase page. However, she was prompted with "insufficient available limit, please confirm whether to proceed with the transaction according to the current maximum available limit". After she clicked 'confirm' and entered the verification code, the system prompted 'no channel bond limit' again. She quickly withdrew to switch to another commercial bank, and as a result, the five-year and three-year treasury bond were all gone - the quota was also "empty".

She didn't give up and with the last glimmer of hope, opened the Beijing Bank, which only started selling at 9 o'clock. Staring at the screen and waiting until 9:00 sharp, my fingers frantically clicked "five-year treasury bond bonds", but it was still a little late, and the interface directly jumped to "sold out". She had no choice but to quickly place an order for "3-year treasury bond", but had just lost the verification code and confirmed success. After a fresh look, there was no "3-year treasury bond".

Ms. Ou told the Economic Observer that it was the first time that she had bought savings treasury bond for more than ten years.

At the beginning of April, the Ministry of Finance announced the issuance of the first and second phases of 2026 savings treasury bond (electronic), which will be issued from April 10 to April 19, 2026.

The reporter from the Economic Observer learned from the interview that, similar to Ms. Ou, many investors called this purchase of treasury bond "the most outrageous and crazy experience in history": mobile banking was sold out in seconds and the quota was sold out in an instant, and some people still failed to place orders at card points, and some investors had to transfer to offline counters to buy.

Quick hands have nothing, slow hands have nothing

According to the announcement of the Ministry of Finance, the first and second treasury bond (electronic) in 2026 are of fixed interest rate and fixed term varieties. The first installment has a term of 3 years, with an annual coupon rate of 1.63% and a maximum issuance amount of 27 billion yuan; The second installment has a term of 5 years, with an annual coupon rate of 1.7% and a maximum issuance amount of 33 billion yuan. The interest of the two treasury bond will start from April 10, 2026. The interest will be paid annually, and the interest will be paid on April 10 each year. The first and second treasury bond will repay the principal and pay the last interest on April 10, 2029 and 2031 respectively.

Compared with voucher treasury bond, Ms. Ou prefers electronic savings treasury bond, because the latter can pay interest every year. According to her introduction, she finally bought 100000 yuan, three-year electronic savings treasury bond and earned interest of 1630 yuan per year. As a person nearing retirement, Ms. Ou attaches great importance to the guarantee of principal and interest. Without other better options, she feels that the interest level is acceptable. The main problem is that it is too difficult to seize, far more difficult than the voucher treasury bond issued in March.

In March, the Ministry of Finance announced the issuance of the first and second phases of savings treasury bond (voucher type) in 2026, which will be issued from March 10 to March 19. According to the issuance announcement, the first installment has a term of 3 years and a coupon rate of 1.63% per year; The second term is 5 years, with an annual coupon rate of 1.7%. The two term treasury bond purchased by investors shall bear interest from the date of purchase, and the principal and interest shall be repaid in a lump sum at maturity, without compound interest, and no interest shall be calculated for overdue redemption.

Compared with electronic savings treasury bond, voucher savings treasury bond needs to be purchased at the counter of bank outlets. On the day of March 10, Ms. Ou went to the bank's offline outlets to fill out the form and buy voucher type treasury bond. At that time, she didn't take "grabbing the quota" seriously, because the quota was still sufficient when she bought it. As a result, when the electronic savings treasury bond was launched in April, it directly hit her.

Compared with Ms. Ou, Xiaowen, a female white-collar worker in Guangzhou, bought the electronic savings treasury bond five years ago, which also expired on April 10, and the principal and interest arrived on schedule. She wanted to make money and decided to continue buying treasury bond. So, on April 10th, she cleared all the applications running in the background of her phone around 8:20 am in advance, started the rush at 8:30 am on time, and completed it in 15 seconds. After placing an order, she found that the subscription of five-year electronic treasury bond was unprecedented hot and sold out in almost a minute.

In fact, both Xiaowen and Ms. Ou are quite lucky. Many investors have clicked on the bank's mobile application and tried multiple times, but were unable to make a successful purchase. One minute later, they found that the limit had become 0. Helpless, they had to rush to the bank's offline branch counter to make a purchase. An investor from Foshan told the reporter that he successfully purchased five-year electronic savings treasury bond over the counter.

The reporter checked the list of banks underwriting electronic savings treasury bond. In addition to large state-owned commercial banks and joint-stock commercial banks, there are also some local urban commercial banks and rural commercial banks. On April 13th, reporters called several commercial banks in Guangdong, including local city commercial banks and rural commercial banks. Relevant bank staff stated that on the day of the sale on April 10th, the counter had already run out of quota.

At the same time, the above bank staff said that the first batch of voucher type savings treasury bond sold in the year on March 10, and the quota of large state-owned commercial banks outlets in many places was sold out on the day of opening. Some joint-stock commercial banks may have a small amount of quota next day, but they were also robbed quickly.

According to Xiaowen, the five-year treasury bond she bought five years ago has an annual coupon rate of 3.97%. At that time, if investors wanted to buy treasury bond, the amount was far less tight than it is now. Many banks still had the amount on the second day of issuance.

In May 2021, electronic savings treasury bond launched a mobile banking consignment channel, which means that investors can buy treasury bond via mobile phones anytime and anywhere. Xiaowen still remembers that when she first purchased electronic treasury bond through mobile banking, the quota ran out on the first day. Some small banks ran out of quota in two or three minutes, while large state-owned commercial banks sold out in half a day.

Xiaowen told reporters that buying treasury bond now is really entering the era of "quick on hand, slow on hand". Every time you buy it, you have to prepare half an hour in advance, just for the golden time of a few seconds, but you won't feel trouble because of it. "When you have spare money, you will continue to buy treasury bond".

The ballast stone asset

As for the behavior of "regularly rushing to buy treasury bond bonds", investors interviewed by reporters said that in today's low interest rate environment, low-risk assets that can be invested are too scarce. At present, the interest rate of 3-year and 5-year fixed deposits of large state-owned commercial banks is generally between 1.3% and 1.5%. The coupon rate of 3-year and 5-year electronic treasury bond issued this year is 30-40 basis points higher than that of fixed deposits in the same period, and the annual interest payment method is adopted, which is more flexible than fixed deposits and large deposit receipts with one-time interest payment at maturity.

The above investors said that in recent years, geopolitical conflicts have continued. Since March, the situation in the Middle East has escalated, the price of gold has fluctuated sharply, and the stock market is also facing adjustment. They feel that most of the assets are not "safe". In contrast, they prefer to invest in low-risk treasury bond products.

In this regard, Wang Pengbo, chief analyst of the financial industry of Broadcom Consulting, told the Economic Observer that although the interest rate of savings treasury bond was not significantly higher than the fixed deposit interest rate of some small and medium-sized banks, savings treasury bond was issued by the Ministry of Finance and relied on the national credit guarantee, and the security of principal and interest payment was at the highest level. To sum up, savings treasury bond still has outstanding advantages in allocation value.

At the same time, Wang Pengbo said that, against the background of increasing risk events in small and medium-sized financial institutions and increasing fluctuations in the net value of wealth management products, residents' demand for principal guaranteed assets continued to increase. In addition, the interest income of treasury bond can be exempted from personal income tax, and the actual after tax income is better than many ordinary fixed deposits. Therefore, even though the interest rate advantage is not prominent, savings treasury bond is still hot selling and quickly sold out in the online issuance stage.

Relevant data also shows that in recent years, residents have a strong willingness to save and are more inclined to lock in income through long-term fixed deposits to avoid the risk of interest rate decline. According to relevant financial statistical data disclosed by the central bank, from 2023 to 2025, the number of new household deposits in China will significantly increase, and the trend of regularization will continue to strengthen. For example, in 2023, household deposits will increase by 16.67 trillion yuan throughout the year, with fixed (including other) deposits accounting for approximately 71.4% of household deposits; In 2024, household deposits will increase by 14.26 trillion yuan, with fixed (including other) deposits accounting for 72.5% of household deposits; By 2025, household deposits will increase by 14.64 trillion yuan, and the proportion of fixed (including other) deposits in household deposits will rise to 73.3%.

In addition, as for the phenomenon of "five-year savings treasury bond are more popular than three-year ones", Wang Pengbo said that the core logic is that five-year coupon rates are relatively more competitive, and in the downward cycle of interest rates, investors generally tend to lock in the current relatively high yield level by allocating long-term production restrictions. At the same time, the market has strong expectations for future interest rate cuts, and investors extending their investment duration can also help effectively reduce reinvestment risks.

For individual residents, Wang Pengbo suggested that savings treasury bond could be used as a bottom position "ballast" asset in asset allocation, giving priority to ensuring the safety of principal and steady returns. The remaining funds, combined with their own risk tolerance, should be matched with low volatility varieties with strong liquidity such as monetary funds and short-term debt funds, to avoid blindly pursuing high returns and allocating non-standard assets or closed products with too long maturities.