PKR lowers to 278.50 vs USD for third session

KARACHI
Pakistani rupee depreciated by 10 more paisas against the US dollar in the interbank market for the third straight session on Thursday.
According to the data released by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the rupee opened at 278.40 against the greenback in the interbank market and closed at 278.50, going down by 0.04 percent. The rupee depreciated by nine paisas and 10 paisas during the previous two sessions. Overall, the rupee has lost 29 paisas this week. During the previous week, the rupee closed unchanged at 278.21 against the US dollar as compared to the week earlier when the local unit had stood at the same level.
The domestic currency has largely been around 277-278 against the dollar in recent weeks as Pakistan moves forward with its plan to win a longer and longer International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program.
Pakistan authorities and the IMF have made “significant progress” towards reaching a staff-level agreement (SLA) on a new program, an end-of-mission statement posted on the lender’s website read.
Meanwhile, the Karachi Interbank Offered Rate (Kibor) dropped sharply on Thursday following the treasury bills auction held on Wednesday last. The benchmark 6-month Karachi Interbank Bid and Offer rates dropped by 18 basis points (bps) to 20.08 percent and 21.07 percent.
The three-month Kibor saw the maximum decline of 25bps to 20.84 percent and 21.09 percent. The auction saw a fall in cutoff rates across all tenors, with the decline going as much as 60bps. The market has renewed its bets for a rate cut by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), which has maintained the policy rate at 22 percent since June 2023, ahead of the upcoming monetary policy meeting. The central bank is scheduled to meet on June 10 to announce its next decision.
Kibor is used as a benchmark for corporate lending rates. It is a market-determined average interest rate at which banks lend to one another in the interbank market.