Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The inter-bank call money rate moved up slightly on Thursday while the US dollar was stable against the local currency in the inter-bank foreign exchange market, treasury officials said.
"The call money moved up slightly on the day despite the central bank's injection of fresh funds into the market to keep it stable," a senior treasury official of a commercial bank said, adding that the short-term borrowings normally increase before the Eid festival to meet the growing demand for cash from the bank clients.
"The pressure for withdrawal of case from the banks may increase in the coming days, ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr festival," the treasury official said without elaborating.
The call rate ranged between 8.75 percent and 10.00 per cent on Thursday against the previous day's range between 6.75 per cent and 12.00 per cent. However, most deals were settled at rates varying between 9.00 percent and 10.00 percent, the market operators said.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) injected fresh funds worth BDT 83.0205 billion at 6.75 percent on the day through auction of repurchase agreement (repo) and special liquidity support to the primary dealers (PDs).
The central bank earlier selected 15 PDs - 12 banks and three non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) - to deal in government securities in the secondary market.
Besides, the central bank provided BDT 3.65 billion as special repo facility to the banks with the rate of interest ranging between 8.75% and 8.80%, according to auction result.
On the other hand, the rate of US dollar remained almost unchanged against the local currency in the inter-bank foreign exchange market due to lower demand for the greenback.
The US dollar was quoted at BDT 74.70-BDT 74.75 in the inter-bank foreign exchange market on Thursday against Tk 74.74-Tk 74.75 of the previous working day, the BB data showed.
BBN/SSR/AD-12Aug11-12:38 am (BST)