Commercial banks might lose their licenses if performing speculative transactions
Commercial banks risk losing their activity licenses if performing speculative transactions, inclusively in the period of the leu’s depreciation. The banks will have to prove the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) they respect certain balance between the rate of buying and selling, declared for Info-Prim Neo, the economist Veaceslav Ionita.
According to him, as speculations on the currency market are qualified the transactions performed in a single direction, when the banks only buy or only sell. As a rule, NBM controls the activity of the banks in this context only if in the country speculative tendencies are registered, said Ionita. He mentioned that at present “the problem is not the lack of currency, but the fact that the persons who possess currency do not want to sell it, because they wait for speculations.
Ionita says that NBM already warned the commercial banks about the speculative tendencies and about the fact it will take measures against those who speculate on the currency market. He is sure that everything will become clear on the Moldovan currency market in the near future, namely the next week.
The quoted source mentions that NBM has three basic mechanisms for thwarting the speculative tendencies: issues a press release saying everything is all right; announces it will sell currency; it sells currency. For each step, NBM usually takes a week and only in special cases, when there is a real danger for the depreciation of the national currency it acts faster. Even if it will decide to sell the currency, the economist stated that NBM will have only to benefit, because it will sell the American dollar at a price of 13.4 lei and will buy it when the currency rate will return to 13 lei rate.
Info-Prim Neo notes that at the beginning of this week, NBM solicited the participants to the currency market of the country not to be influenced of the speculative influences directed towards the unjustified depreciation of the leu. NBM showed willing to sell to commercial banks currency swaps, which will contribute to satisfying the increasing demand for currency and diminish excessive fluctuations of the exchange rate.