SBV’s decision cools foreign currency market down
The hot foreign currency market has been cooled down after the State Bank of Vietnam decided on June 26 to raise the foreign currency daily trading band to 2% and strictly prohibited commercial banks to collect additional fee for foreign currency transactions.
On June 27, the official VND/US$ exchange rate announced by the State Bank of Vietnam was VND16,516/US$1, up by VND65/US$1 over the previous day. A lot of commercial banks announced the same dollar purchase and sale prices at VND16,846/US$1, which was the highest possible rate (2% higher than the official rate announced by the central bank).
Vietcombank HCM City branch quoted the cash purchase price at VND16,806/US$1, and the sale price at VND16,846/US$1 on the same day.
Commercial banks all said that the decision on new daily trading band has helped ease the dollar shortage.
Pham The Tuan, Deputy Director of Vietcombank HCM City Branch, said that his bank has enough dollars to sell to the companies which need dollars to import key products like fertilizer or petrol.
Tuan added that the central bank has made the right move when raising the daily trading band to 2%. Export companies, which refused to sell dollars to banks several days ago because of the low prices, now can sell at higher prices. Meanwhile, they understand that they will not have the change to sell dollars to banks at the black market prices, as the State Bank of Vietnam will supervise and inspect their transactions.
Luu Duc Khanh, General Director of An Binh Bank, said that the dollar supply has become more profuse, which has helped settle the market
On June 27, the dollar price on the black market was VND17,400-17,800/US$1.
Dao Hong Chau, Deputy General Director of Eximbank, said that people still prefer selling dollars on the black market instead of selling to banks because they black market offers higher prices. Therefore, Chau said, the bank cannot purchase dollars from individual clients.
VNN
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