RBI permits trading in repurchase of G-secs contracted for sale

07 Feb 2012 Evaluate

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed the repurchase or repo of government securities (G-secs) that have been contracted for sale to improve liquidity in the G-sec market. The move comes at a time when the banking system is facing severe liquidity crunch with banks borrowing over Rs 93,000 crore every day from the special liquidity window and also increasing government borrowing to meet their requirements.

This is despite the fact the on January 24, RBI had cut the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) requirement by 50 basis points (bps), thus releasing Rs 32,000 crore into the system daily. The RBI has done OMOs worth nearly Rs 90,000 crore so far since November 2011.

Earlier any transaction in G-secs was allowed only if the party or dealer actually held that security in its portfolio. But, now the dealers will be able to transact in a G-sec if he has entered into a contract for sale or repurchase without actually holding that security at the time of trading. However, the contract agreement should be confirmed prior to the transaction and be guaranteed by Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) or the security is contracted for purchase from the RBI itself.

To ward off any concerns about RBI’s OMOs being a way to support government borrowings, the RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn has recently stated that the choice of securities is driven by the need to be reasonably certain about achieving the aggregate liquidity number and are not a way of helping the government borrowing programme.

As per the data released by the RBI, government has overshot its market borrowing target by nearly Rs 93,000 crore this financial year from the budgeted Rs 4.17 lakh crore. As of end December, the government had already borrowed a little over 92% of its planned borrowing target. In another notification, RBI has modified the monthly report on short-selling to capture the changes in the regulatory changes during the month. Also, the monthly report on these transactions shall be submitted to the Financial Markets Department by 8th of every month.

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