BB continues to offer OD facilities to SCBs

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The central bank continues to offer overdraft (OD) facilities to the commercial banks, particularly the state-owned commercial banks (SCB), for settlement of oil import bills, officials said.

Under the move, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) provided OD facilities for US$16 million in the last two days to help two SCBs clear their oil import bills.

"We have provided the SCBs such facilities against reverse repo to settle import payment bills for petroleum products," a BB senior official told the FE Tuesday.

He also said the BB will continue to give such foreign currency support to the commercial banks mainly for making import payments of essential items including petroleum products and food grains.

The BB has continued its intervention in the inter-bank foreign exchange market by selling and buying US dollar directly and providing such short term facilities to the banks aiming to keep the market stable, they added.

As part of the intervention, the central bank has bought US$9.50 million from the commercial banks recently to keep the country's foreign exchange market stable.

On the other hand, the central bank has started intervention in the market by selling the US currency directly to the commercial banks since October 29 last year to keep the market steady.

The central bank has since sold $735 million to the commercial banks as part of its intervention in the market.