Approximately 70% of banks operating in the local market failed to obtain any dollar liquidity through the dollar auction offered by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) on Tuesday, according to the director of treasury in one of these banks, who wished remain anonymous.
On Tuesday morning, the CBE raised the second periodic auction to sell dollars to banks this week, through which approximately $39.4m were sold. This marks the second auction since Tarek Amer took his position as the new governor.
It maintained the exchange rate of the dollar against the pound at this periodic auction at EGP 7.73, which led to stabilising the dollar price at banks at a bidding price of EGP 7.78 and an asking price of EGP 7.83.
According to the source, only seven to 10 banks got this amount, while the CBE rejected the remaining banks under the pretext of their delay in requesting the dollars.
The denial of the dollars to the remaining banks caused them to delay meeting their customers’ dollar demands, which led to an aggravation of the crisis of pending dollar requests.
