NAIROBI: The Kenya shilling firmed against the dollar on Thursday after an infrastructure bond auction that attracted inflows from offshore investors and squeezed liquidity on local money markets.
The auction has helped the shilling bounce back swiftly from some weakness seen around a dramatic four-day siege of a Nairobi shopping mall which killed at least 67 and threw Kenyan security issues onto the world stage.
The Somali al Shabaab militant group claimed responsibility.
"It seems to be going against all odds and gaining quite a bit," said Duncan Kinuthia, head of trading at Commercial Bank of Africa, asked if the fallout of the siege was hurting the shilling.
At 0815 GMT, leading commercial banks posted the shilling at 87.05/15 per dollar, slightly up from the previous day's closing rate of 87.15/25.
The auction caused overnight borrowing rates to head higher with the weighted average interest rate on the banks' overnight borrowing window rising to 8.7866 percent on Wednesday from 8.6198 percent in the previous session.
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