India's central bank opens special dollar window for state oil firms as rupee nears record low
The Reserve Bank of India said in a statement early Saturday it will open a special window on Monday to meet the entire daily dollar requirements of three state-run oil companies, selling dollars through designated lenders. Bloomberg described the package as the strongest action since the country's 2013 currency crisis, while NDTV Profit reported the rupee closed at 96.71 to the US dollar (approximately 89.10 euro per 100 dollars) on Friday. The central bank also cut the threshold for hedging trades without underlying exposure from $100 million to $5 million (around 4.6 million euro), and introduced a cash reserve requirement of 20% on certain large contracts.
Bottom line — The rupee has been sliding toward a record low, and the RBI is now spending its own dollar reserves and tightening rules to slow it.
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NDTV Profit reported the three beneficiaries are Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and that the facility takes effect on October 12, 2026 and runs until further notice.
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The RBI rule stopping rebooking of cancelled rupee derivative contracts still permits rollovers of contracts at maturity, according to the central bank's statement quoted by NDTV Profit.
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Bloomberg compared the new reserve tool to measures China's central bank uses to manage the yuan, though it did not detail how closely the two mechanisms match.
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Bloomberg reported the measures came days after a separate report that the RBI faced a rupee slide testing its multiple defenses as a record low neared, and after a rate hike that traders said left them wanting more.
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NDTV Profit said the rupee's depreciation was attributed to persisting geopolitical and global economic uncertainty, a framing the central bank's statement used but did not elaborate on.