Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has unveiled a revised Framework on Currency Swap Arrangement for SAARC countries for the period 2024 to 2027, offering various concessions.
Under this Framework, the RBI, the central bank of India, would enter into bilateral swap agreements with SAARC central banks, who want to avail of the swap facility.
Actually, this framework enables bilateral currency swap agreements between the RBI and SAARC central banks to address short-term foreign exchange liquidity needs or balance of payments crises.
“Under the Framework for 2024-27, a separate INR Swap Window has been introduced with various concessions for swap support in Indian Rupee. The total corpus of the Rupee support is ₹250 billion,” the RBI said in a notification on Thursday.
Besides, a US Dollar/Euro Swap Window with a corpus of US$2.0 billion will continue, according to the notification,
All SAARC member countries can access the facility, provided they sign the bilateral agreements.
SAARC consists of eight member states: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
The SAARC Currency Swap Facility came into operation on November 15, 2012 with an objective to provide a backstop line of funding for short term foreign exchange liquidity requirements or balance of payment crises of the SAARC countries till longer term arrangements are made.
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