India FX market boom fuels high salaries

The salaries of foreign exchange traders in India are expected to jump by up to 30 per cent this year, as the rising rupee stokes demand for hedging services and trading volumes swell.

Some traders are now earning as much as their counterparts in Asian centres like Singapore, and keeping experienced staff is increasingly expensive. Banks face turnover of up to a fifth of staff each year.

"Retention is the name of the game. Banks don't mind paying heavily for it. Treasury is making so much money that they don't mind sharing a bit of the profits," said Tzeitel Fernandes at human resources firm Hewitt Associates.

Read more in Financial Express

India FX market boom fuels high salaries

The salaries of foreign exchange traders in India are expected to jump by up to 30 per cent this year, as the rising rupee stokes demand for hedging services and trading volumes swell.

Some traders are now earning as much as their counterparts in Asian centres like Singapore, and keeping experienced staff is increasingly expensive. Banks face turnover of up to a fifth of staff each year.

"Retention is the name of the game. Banks don't mind paying heavily for it. Treasury is making so much money that they don't mind sharing a bit of the profits," said Tzeitel Fernandes at human resources firm Hewitt Associates.

Read more in Financial Express

RBI's hands-off strategy irks IT industry

India's IT industry, the flag bearer of a resurgent economy, wants the government to step in and check the rupee's unprecedented rise to nine-year highs in an effort to protect their earnings.

The rupee has gained almost 10 per cent this year and 14 per cent over the past 12 months against the dollar, denting the earnings of an industry that gets two-thirds of its 50 billion dollars in annual revenue from the US.

"It's not a market driven by market forces alone," said Kiran Karnik, president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), in an interview here. "These are not normal times."

Read more in The Economic Times

Re closes at 40.34/35 vs dlr

The rupee on Thursday closed barely steady at 40.34/35 against the US dollar in a two-way movements on alternate bouts of buying and selling.

In active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the Indian currency opened at 40.34/35 per dollar but recovered in late morning deals to a high of 40.27 a dollar on firm equity markets where the benchmark Sensex was up by nearly 113 points in early trade.

However, dollar purchases by state-run banks on behalf of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) after afternoon pulled the rupee down to close at the opening level of 40.34/35 a dollar, barely steady against Wednesday's close of 40.35/36 a dollar.

Read more in The Economic Times

Forex reserves up $1.43bn at $199.18bn

Foreign exchange reserves increased $1.43 billion to $199.18 billion during the week ended March 30, according to the weekly supplement released by the RBI today.

Foreign currency assets rose $1.53 billion to $191.9 billion. While gold reserves declined $99 million to $6.78 billion, SDRs were unchanged at $2 million.

The Reserve Tranche Position with the IMF was unchanged at $469 million.

Rupee sees biggest fall in 11 years

The rupee had its biggest single-day fall in 11 years against the dollar on Thursday, amid buying of dollars by importers following the greenback’s sharp falls over the last few days and also on suspected intervention by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The rupee fell 1.7 per cent to Rs 43.76 a dollar at close. The decline was the biggest since March 1996.

Dealers said it made sense for importers, particularly oil companies, to buy dollars after the recent sharp fall versus the rupee. The rupee has gained about 7.5 per cent since July 2006. The Indian currency touched an 8-year high of 43.05 yesterday.

The rupee had strengthened against the dollar because of the liquidity squeeze. Banks were selling dollars to replenish rupee liquidity excessively drained after tax outflows around March 15.

A dealer said the RBI was buying dollars at around Rs 43.50 and this, combined with importer demand, led to the rupee dropping the sharpest in 11 years.

The buying of dollars by the RBI and to some extent government spending infused rupee liquidity into the banking system, causing the call rates to close at 10 per cent on Thursday. The call rate closed at 10 per cent on Thursday.

The average weighted call rate yesterday was over 25 per cent.

Forex reserves dip $224mn to $194.41bn

After a dream run of almost one month, the country's forex reserves dipped by $224 million to $194.410 billion during the week ended March 9 as against $194.634 billion during the week ended March 2.

The reserves were up by $1.51 billion during the week ended March 2 compared to the preceding seven-day period.

The foreign currency assets also decreased by $224 million to $187.058 billion during the seven-day period ended March 9, according to figures released by Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Foreign currency assets in dollars include the effect of revaluation of non-US currencies such as Euro, Sterling, Yen held in reserves.

Reserve position in the IMF, SDRs and gold reserves remained unchanged at $467 million, $2 million and $6.683 billion respectively.