1. Reserve Requirements
Commercial banks are required to maintain a minimum reserves
on average over a fortnightly period (starting on a Wednesday and ending on a second Tuesday thereafter),with carry-over provisions, equaled to a specified percentage of the previous period's average level of commercial banks' deposits/liabilities base. The reserve base comprises deposits, borrowings through issuance of bills of exchange or promissory notes, short
-term foreign borrowings maturing within one year and
other borrowings with index
-linked returns or embedded financial derivatives. Currently, the reserve requirements ratio is 6%,and reserves consist of the following assets:
1) Aminimum 1% in non-remunerated current account deposits at the BOT, (of which no more than 0.2% in cash at the central cash centers of commercial banks can be counted towards this component)
2) Amaximum 2.5% inVault cash. The cash at the central cash centers of commercial banks that is in excess of 0.2%can be
counted as vault cash
3) The rest in unencumbered eligible public securities and term
deposits at the BOTCompliance with reserve requirements is determined on the basis of the average of the end-of-day balances of the banks’ reserves assets over a maintenance period. Such averaging arrangement helps to facilitate banks’ own liquidity management as well asto reduce daily volatility in short
-term interest rates.
For example, a bank may maintain reserves below the amount required on a particular day, and choose to increase its reserve
S holding on other days within the same maintenance period,
without necessarily borrowingfrom the interbank market
on that day which could put upward pressure on the interbank rates. The carry-over provision provides commercial banks greater flexibility in liquidity management by allowing banks to transfer up to 5% of reserves between consecutive maintenance periods. This carry-over provision applies to the current account deposits component only and it works both ways. That is, banks can count part of this period’s excess reserves towards next period’s equirements by up to 5% of the requirements, and banks can make up5% shortfalls of current-period required reserve in
the next period.The carry-over provision helps reduce interest rate volatility on the last day of the maintenance period.