MOSCOW, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Russia's central bank will impose
limits on purchases of foreign exchange by commercial banks from
Thursday and will take steps to prevent an interbank crisis from
spreading, a senior central bank official said on Wednesday.
"From tomorrow we are introducing limits on some banking
activities, in particular for buying foreign currency just for
their own needs as reserves," Sergei Aleksashenko told ORT public
television. "We are telling banks that what you have today is the
level which you do not have the right to exceed."
Aleksashenko, first deputy chairman of the central bank, said
market participants were trying to stock hard currency by cutting
their rouble reserves.
"We intend to take under strict control, every minute and
every hour, activities of the banks whose positions are causing
serious suspicions of instability," he added. "We intend to
prevent the interbank crisis from spreading further."
Aleksashenko told Reuters earlier that the interbank market
was suffering from a crisis of confidence and lack of liquidity
but he saw no threat to the entire banking system and the central
bank was trying to resolve the problems.
The bank has raised overnight credit limits for some banks to
boost rouble liquidity but it had reduced or closed
dollar-purchasing lines for some, he added.
((Moscow Newsroom, +7095 941-8520 moscow.newsroom@reuters.com))
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