BB purchases near $4b from banks in last 7 months

Business Desk :

The Bangladesh Bank has bought nearly $4 billion from commercial banks since July 2025 to keep the dollar rate stable amid rising inflows of foreign currency. BB data showed that the latest intervention took place on Thursday, when the central bank purchased about $55 million from five banks at Tk 122.30 a dollar, which also served as the cut-off rate.

The central bank bought around $3.93 billion in FY26, including $798 million in January alone. The dollar buying began on July 13, 2025 with an initial purchase of $202 million and continued in several rounds through early January 2026.

Officials said that all the dollars bought from the market were added directly to the country’s foreign exchange reserves. As of January 22, Bangladesh’s gross reserves stood at about $32.66 billion, while reserves measured under the IMF’s BPM6 standard were around $28 billion.

The recovery represents a clear reversal from the earlier part of the year, when reserves slipped close to $18 billion following heavy dollar sales to meet the cost of fuel, fertiliser and food imports amid global price shocks and domestic supply constraints. BB officials said that intervention became necessary as the dollar began to weaken due to excess supply in the interbank market.

Since the Bangladesh Bank started buying dollars, the exchange rate has remained largely steady at around Tk 123 a dollar. Before the intervention, the rate had dropped to Tk 119.5 on July 12.
Economists said that without central bank action, the surplus supply of dollars could have pushed the exchange rate down further, eroding export competitiveness and dampening remittance inflows. Bankers said that commercial banks were increasingly willing to offload dollars to the central bank as holding foreign currency became less attractive.
With the exchange rate stable and the policy rate kept tight at 10 per cent, banks found it more profitable to convert dollars into taka and place funds in domestic instruments such as treasury bills and central bank facilities.
Over the three years up to financial year 2024-25, the Bangladesh Bank sold more than $25 billion from its reserves to smooth volatility in the foreign exchange market and ensure payments for essential imports.
Those interventions significantly drained reserves. Since March 2025, however, the pace of taka depreciation has slowed, supported by strong remittance and export receipts. Against this backdrop, the central bank shifted its focus to rebuilding reserves through sustained dollar purchases.
During the first half of the 2025-26 financial years, remittances rose by 18.1 per cent to $16.26 billion, compared with $13.77 billion in the same period a year earlier. Bankers attributed the growth to stricter action against informal hundi channels and a more market-aligned exchange rate, which encouraged expatriates to send money through formal banking routes.