SHORT-TERM RATES LIKELY TO REMAIN STEADY NEXT WEEK

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 21 (Bernama) -- With Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) continuing to intervene, via tenders, to ensure sufficient funds in the financial system, short-term rates are expected to remain stable next week,,

A dealer said the central bank is expected to call for conventional, Islamic and repo tenders on a daily basis in accordance with the amount of liquidity surplus in the market. The overnight, one-week, two-week and three-week rates ended at 1.97 per cent, 2.00 per cent, 2.01 per cent and 2.03 per cent respectively. BNM intervened daily throughout the week to mop up excess funds from the system by conducting conventional, Al-Wadiah, repo and commodity murabahah tenders. It also called for late tenders to further reduce the surplus. Following the exercise, total liquidity for the week was reduced to RM24.503 billion in the conventional system and in the Islamic funds to RM5.413 billion.

The underlying three-month interbank rate ended the week at 2.17 per cent. -- BERNAMA STP VMD