English
The NBR yesterday removed 1 billion lei from the interbank market, through deposits with a 1-week maturity, at a rate of 6.25%/year, equal to the policy rate, as the leu has been depreciating lately.
This is the third time the NBR performs this operation this year. The NBR sterilized around 2.5 billion lei in April, at an interest rate of 6.5%.
The most recent operation of this type was held by the Central Bank on June 21st, when the NBR sterilized 500 million lei from the interbank market, for a week, again at the policy rate.
Overnight interest rates continued to decrease slightly yesterday, after the intervention of the NBR, ranging between 2.19 - 2.69%, below Friday"s rates, of 2.4% - 2.74%. Interest rates for 1-week deposits climbed to 4.37 - 4.87%, above last week"s rates of 4,.6 - 4.76%.
Analysts say that the operation of attracting deposits became necessary the moment the interbank rates dropped far below the policy rate of the NBR and yesterday"s depo auction comes after the leu was increasingly pressured.
"These auctions are only intended to cap the depreciation of the leu, due to the worsening investor sentiment on the region", an analyst said.
The Euro last week climbed to 4.26 lei, up from 4.23 lei 10 days ago.
Yesterday, after the intervention of the NBR, the Euro gained 1 ban against the Euro, rising to 4.2740 - 4.2790 lei.
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