Only a few days to go before one of the biggest annual festivals, Eid-ul-Fitr, banks this year apparently are in a comfortable position to meet the cash demands of their clients as they are borrowing less from interbank call money market.
The comparatively low demand resulted in decline in the average call rate ahead of Eid this year by 1.0 percent compared to the call rate in the same period last year.
The latest data from Bangladesh Bank (BB) showed that the highest call rate was 6.0 percent and the lowest was 5.25 percent on Tuesday, which were 7.0 percent and 6.25 percent accordingly before Eid in 2014.
The state-owned Agrani Bank and Sonali Bank offered the highest 6.0 percent lending rate on the interbank money market when the US-based Citi Bank NA and local private Southeast Bank offered the lowest 5.25 percent lending rate.
The highest rate, however, was 6.50 percent and the lowest was 5.80 percent for non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs).
Record remittance inflow, steady export earning and stable trade and business helped banks maintain adequate liquidity to meet the additional cash demand for Eid, which eventually kept the lending rate low on the interbank money market, a BB official said.
Local currency Taka was also stable on the foreign exchange market. Sonali Bank update showed that the selling rate to pubic for US dollar was Taka 78.75 and for GBP was Taka 121.35 on Tuesday. The buying rate from pubic for US dollar was Taka 77.75 and for GBP was Taka 117.35.
