RBI restringe liquidez para fortalecer rupia

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

El martes, el Banco de Reserva de la India (RBI) anunció medidas para “reducir la volatilidad” (frenar la depreciación) de la rupia india (INR). Fue el segundo anuncio de este tipo en dos semanas (lea el primer anuncio, resumido en Reuters). Al restringir la liquidez, estas acciones parecen haber frenado la depreciación de la moneda pero también han puesto presión al alza sobre las tasas de interés (a la baja sobre los precios de bonos) y han lastimado el mercado accionario (WSJ 1, WSJ 2, Barclays $). El comité de política monetaria del RBI se reúne el próximo martes 30 de junio.

El 15 de julio, el banco central de India anunció las primeras medidas restringiendo liquidez para reducir la volatilidad de la rupia. Reuters resume:

The Reserve Bank of India announced measures late on Monday to curb the rupee’s decline by tightening liquidity and making it costlier for banks to access funds from the central bank.

The RBI raised the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and Bank Rate each by 200 basis points to 10.25 percent, capped the amount up to which banks can borrow or lend under its daily liquidity window and announced a sale of government securities through an open market operation.

The RBI said total funds available under its repo window will be capped at 1 percent of banks’ deposits – roughly 750 billion rupees ($12.5 billion) – from Wednesday. It announced a 120 billion rupee sale of government bonds for Thursday.

El martes 23 de julio, el RBI anunció nuevas medidas. WSJ explicó:

India’s central bank Tuesday imposed new restrictions on commercial banks’ access to cash, adding to its recent measures to support the rupee currency which fell to a record low this month.

From Wednesday, banks would be permitted to borrow cash only up to 0.5% of their net deposits from the central bank daily at the benchmark interest rate of 7.25%.

[…] The RBI also tightened rules on the cash reserve ratio—the percentage of deposits that banks must hold as cash with the central bank—which is 4.0% at present.

Banks are required to report their CRR every two weeks, and are allowed to maintain a lower CRR between reporting dates. From next week, they will have to hold cash equivalent to at least 99% of the CRR between reporting dates, compared with 70% at present.

Last week, the RBI set a total limit of 750 billion rupees ($12.6 billion) on the amount banks can borrow from the central bank at the benchmark rate. Above that limit, banks have to pay an interest rate of 10.25%.

[…] The measures are aimed at restricting the supply of rupees in the local banking system and making it more expensive for traders to buy dollars with borrowed rupees.

Al restringir la liquidez, estas acciones parecen haber frenado la depreciación de la moneda pero también han puesto presión al alza sobre las tasas de interés (a la baja sobre los precios de bonos) y han lastimado el mercado accionario.

WSJ el día siguiente:

These are the latest in a series of measures the RBI has taken to shore up the currency. While the steps have noticeably reduced swings in the dollar-rupee pair, the Indian currency hasn’t seen the sharp desired recovery.

It has instead brought much pain to the debt and share markets.

Wednesday, India’s cash rate rose to 10.15% from around 7.3% a day before. The yield on government bonds jumped more than 0.3 percentage point in a single session even as trading volumes remained thin. On a normal trading day, bond yields see an average movement of 0.07-0.10 percentage point.

Indian shares, too, fell after five straight sessions of gains. Stocks of banks and financial companies witnessed a selloff as investors fretted that the RBI’s move will raise banks’ short-term borrowing costs and hurt their earnings.

Siddhartha Sanyal y Rahul Bajoria de Barclays argumentan que la restricción de liquidez será contra-productivo:

Late in the evening on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), following up on its surprise liquidity tightening measures last week (15 July), introduced an additional set of measures “to address exchange market volatility”.

[…] In fact, we remain concerned that there is a considerable probability that these measures can turn counter-productive in the context of generating support for INR. This risk can turn particularly meaningful if these measures start denting foreign institutional investor (FII) flows into the Indian equity market. FIIs’ investment in India is considerably higher in equity (about USD200bn in the BSE500 companies) than in debt (about USD30bn). The current set of measures from the RBI remains distinctly negative for equities, as it further dents an already scrambling growth outlook.

[…] Overall, we feel that these measures are not enough to stabilise the INR. In fact, we see greater risks to our near-term USD/INR forecasts of 59 in 1m and 58 in 3m, due to the current spell of liquidity tightening, unless these measures are followed up strongly with further actions to boost FX inflows in the near term.

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