PTImumbai

The Reserve Bank on Monday said it will conduct a forex swap of USD 10 billion later this month to inject liquidity into the banking system. The USD/INR Buy/Sell swap auction of USD 10 billion for a tenor of thirty-six months will be conducted on March 24, the RBI said in a statement.

The swap will be in the nature of a simple buy/sell foreign exchange swap from the Reserve Bank. A bank shall sell US dollars to the Reserve Bank and simultaneously agree to buy the same amount of US dollars at the end of the swap period. "The market participants would be required to place their bids in terms of the premium that they are willing to pay to the Reserve Bank for the tenor of the swap, expressed in paisa terms up to two decimal places," the central bank said. The auction cut-off would be based on the premium.

Banking system liquidity has been in deficit since mid-December, with market participants attributing the tightness to the RBI's spot dollar sales to soften the rupee's depreciation. The RBI has been conducting dollar/rupee buy/sell swaps since December in the currency forwards market intermittently to offset the impact of its dollar sales in the spot market and avert pushing out rupee liquidity.

The net liquidity injected by the RBI--a proxy for systemic liquidity deficit--has averaged a little under INR 1 trillion in March, lower than both January and February. The net liquidity injected had improved to a near three-month low earlier this month due to the RBI's liquidity support, including swap auctions, long-term variable rate repo operations and open market operation gilt purchases.