MOSCOW: The Russian Central Bank said on Tuesday it was starting overnight rouble-dollar swap operations to increase short-term banking sector liquidity.
Several waves of sanctions from the United States and the European Union against Moscow for its involvement in the Ukraine crisis have limited access to foreign capital for Russia's largest banks and key oil companies.
In July, the bank said it was ready to provide liquidity to lenders hit by Western sanctions if they face additional risks.
"These operations are aimed at strengthening the capacity of credit institutions to manage their own short-term currency liquidity, and will be carried out at fixed interest rates," the Central Bank said in a statement.
The Central Bank said the swap operations in their rouble part will carry an interest rate based on the Central Bank's key lending rate, the one-week repo rate, minus 1 percentage point.
This means that for now, the swap rate stands at 7 percent. For the dollar part, the rate is set at an annualised 1.50 percent.
The bank set the overnight swap limit at $1 billion.
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