The Bangladesh Bank is now attempting to try out a new set of rules in managing the volatility in foreign-exchange (forex) market.
As part of the latest move, the central bank is scheduled to hold a meeting with the top bankers on Sunday with this contingency task on top of the agenda, officials said on Saturday.
Revamping the interbank forex market along with fixing the spread between selling and buying rates of the US currency are expected to dominate the day's crucial discussions.
The central bank has already invited the leaders of the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) and Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association (Bafeda) to take part in the meeting, according to officials.
The meeting will be held at the BB headquarters in the capital with deputy governor Ahmed Jamal in the chair.
The banks quoted a maximum Tk95 for the sale of bills for collection, generally known as BC, to their customers for settling the import payments on Thursday.
Some banks, however, traded the greenback at rates ranging between Tk95 and Tk109 for settling the import payment obligations, ignoring their announced rates, according to market operators.
On the other hand, the banks also quoted the dollar maximum at Tk94 on the day to remitters as well as realized export proceeds or TT clean which remained unchanged from the previous working day.
Some banks, however, collected the export proceeds offering maximum Tk107 instead of Tk94 on the same day to meet their growing demand for the greenback, they added.
Currently, all the authorized dealer (AD) banks are allowed to keep the spread at maximum Tk1 between selling and buying of the US currency in line with the Bafeda's recommendation.
In September 2006, the Bafeda had advised its member banks to maintain the spread at maximum Tk1 for BC selling and TT clean buying of the US dollar.
The banks now fix their exchange rates for smaller and retail transactions, including interbank ones, in line with the central bank's advice.
However, larger corporate transactions are priced in line with the much higher sourcing costs of overseas remittance sent by international exchange houses.
Meanwhile, ABB Chairman Selim R F Hussain had earlier urged all the stakeholders to help make the interbank forex market operative and vibrant to ease the ongoing pressure.
Currently, the local currency is depreciating against the dollar mainly due to higher outflow of foreign exchange following a hefty growth in import payments compared to the inflow in the last few months.
Earlier on August 3, the central bank relaxed its regulations on encashment of the value-added portion of repatriated export proceeds aiming to bring flexibility to trade transactions.
Under the relaxations, all the AD banks have been allowed to retain the value-added portion of export proceeds in foreign currency for a maximum period of 15 days.
The value-added portion refers to the export proceeds that are available to exporters after their import bills for back-to-back letters of credit (LCs) have been settled.
On May 29 last, the central bank had asked the AD banks to encash the value-added portion of repatriated export proceeds by the following business day.
Meanwhile, the central bank continues to provide its foreign-currency support to scheduled banks for managing the forex-market volatility.
Under the moves, the central bank sold $122 million more directly to different banks on Thursday to help them meet a growing demand for the greenback as global price rises have led to import-cost escalation with its resultant pressures on reserves of Bangladesh, as also of many other countries.
The BB has so far injected $1.72 billion from the reserves directly into commercial banks as liquidity support for import payments in the current FY23.
In FY22, the central bank sold $7.62 billion from the reserves to the banks for the same purpose.
Bangladesh's forex reserves rose to $39.59 billion on Thursday from $39. 54 billion of the previous working day, following increased inflow of foreign exchange than outflow.