National Bank of Belarus informed the commercial banks that it would not sell them foreign currency for sale to the public, said a source in the financial market. Faced with acute shortage of foreign currency, the Belarusian authorities have introduced a number of restrictions on foreign exchange market since the beginning of the year, including establishing new bidding rules, according to which the application of banks to purchase foreign currency at the exchange market will be met within 30 days from the date of filing instead of a single day. Nevertheless, the National Bank has continued selling the currency to banks for currency exchange offices.
«The National Bank has informed that he will not sell the currency to banks for sale to the public. Banks must operate within their own long currency positions. The reality is that banks lack their long currency position,» a source in a bank told Reuters anonymously.
The representative of the National Bank has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a letter, but has said that the NBB is directing banks to develop the OTC market, said Korrespondent.net. «The general policy of the National Bank is the banks’ orientation towards OTC market,» said the spokesman of the National Bank Anatoli Drozdov.
