ISLAMABAD – State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has injected a whopping sum of Rs.2 trillion in the banking system to meet the requirement of cash for banksand their customers ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.
According to the official statistics, the central bank provided a total ofRs. 2.025 trillion amount to banking system or money market, which is saidto be the highest ever injection by SBP in the history.
The demand of cash was immense ahead of the Eid-ul-Azha, mainly because ofthe purchasing of sacrificial animals by the masses and shopping of cloths,footwear and more during the festive.
Due to increased demand, there are investors and traders who neededbillions in cash to make margins in the seasonal business.
Resultantly, banks witnessed withdrawal of huge money ahead of Eid-ul-Azhawhich usually takes a month to come back in the banking system after a gapof holidays and recovery of the funds. Hence, this could potentially affectthe liquidity and cash flows of the banks.
Besides, there are banks that have invested an amount of Rs. 40 billion inthe government papers mainly in T-Bills, which also saw an outflow of thereserves for the period of three months.
This situation created a pressure on the banking system that demandedintervention of the central bank through a systemic tool of liquiditymanagement, that is, open market operation.
According to the official data, the SBP provided Rs. 2.025 trillion ofseven-day reverse repo, a short-term lending facility to commercial banks,in its open market operation (OMO) against 7.55 percent rate of return.