印度央行设立油企美元窗口并上调外汇衍生品准备金，强力防守卢比97关口

India is defining its tolerance for rupee weakness with the central bank’s strongest currency defense in more than a decade reinforcing 97 as the limit.

The Reserve Bank of India unveiled on Saturday some of Asia’s most stringent curbs after the currency approached the record low near 97 per dollar. While the moves offered the rupee some reprieve Monday, sustaining the recovery may be harder as elevated oil prices and capital outflows weigh on the currency.

The rupee surged 1.2%, its biggest jump since April, to 95.5963 per dollar. Bonds fell, with the benchmark 10-year yield rising to the highest level since November 2023.

“It is absolutely evident now that 97 per dollar is the RBI’s line in the sand for the rupee,” said Abhishek Upadhyay, an economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership Ltd. in Mumbai. The RBI’s message is that the rupee’s fall has been too sharp and the central bank is willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a new record low, he said.

Australia & New Zealand Banking Corp., Crédit Agricole SA and Malayan Banking Bhd also view 97 as the key level for the RBI.

RBI Steps

The new measures include a special window to meet state-run oil companies’ dollar needs and a reserve requirement on certain foreign-exchange derivatives. The RBI, which raised interest rates last week and signaled it was open to further tightening, again intervened in the onshore market Monday to support the rupee, traders familiar with the matter said.

“The RBI’s latest measures reinforce 97 as a line in the sand for the rupee, at least temporarily,” said Shaun Lim, FX analyst at Maybank in Singapore.

The RBI has already taken several steps to bolster its foreign-exchange resources. Its diaspora deposit program raised a record $133 billion, swelling its foreign-exchange reserves to nearly $800 billion in early September. Since then, the stockpile has fallen $51 billion, partly due to the RBI’s dollar sales to support the rupee.

Earlier, it also limited daily net open positions for banks at $100 million and barred lenders from offering clients non-deliverable rupee contracts, a restriction it later rolled back. It also removed taxes on bond investments by global funds.

The rupee has weakened about 6% this year, one of the worst performers in Asia. RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said last week it was undervalued on some gauges, and that markets can be irrational in the short term.

The latest steps target demand in the foreign-exchange derivatives market. For the first time, the RBI introduced a foreign-exchange risk reserve, requiring lenders to hold with the central bank the rupee equivalent of 20% of the notional value of each derivative transaction above $2 million. The People’s Bank of China has a similar tool to manage pressures on the yuan by varying the reserve requirement on forward contracts.

“The RBI still has a lot of policy measures it can introduce to prevent the rupee from falling past 97,” said Eugenia Victorino, head of Asia strategy at Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken in Singapore. “It is likely hoping that these measures buy them time until oil prices pull back yet again.”

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