Overview
- The Reserve Bank of India has been supplying dollars through state‑run banks and special swap facilities to cap USD/INR losses and keep the rate under the 96.00 threshold.
- The rupee has traded in a narrow band around the mid‑95s to about 96.15, with brief intraday dips to the low 96s followed by RBI‑backed dollar sales that pushed it back into the mid‑95s.
- Persistent external headwinds — a stronger US dollar driven by rising Treasury yields and elevated crude oil prices — plus roughly USD 2.2 billion of foreign portfolio outflows in September are the main pressures on the currency.
- Market intervention has coincided with a rise in India’s foreign exchange reserves to about USD 766 billion in mid‑September and with policy measures such as swap windows designed to attract nonresident foreign currency deposits.
- Pakistan’s rupee recorded marginal interbank gains near PKR 277 and an IMF mission is conducting reviews in Islamabad, underscoring wider regional currency sensitivity to global yields, oil and capital flows.