Turkish central bank holds intraday repo auction

Turkish Central Bank opted to hold an expensive intraday repo auction on Friday instead of providing cheap funds to the market, adding to signs it is moving to tighten monetary policy to counter inflationary pressures resulting from a weak lira. The bank will hold a 3 billion lira ($1.66 billion) intraday one-week repo auction on Friday, instead of its usual repo auctions at a fixed-rate of 5.75 per cent. . After the announcement, the lira firmed to 1.8000 versus the dollar from 1.8055 beforehand. Turkey’s two-year benchmark bond yield  rose to 9.78 per cent from 9.70 per cent earlier. As intraday repo auctions are held according to the standard auction method where banks tell the central bank the amount they want and the interest rate they are ready to pay, they tend to be more expensive compared with fixed-rate repo auctions. The central bank had offered its first hint of a switch back to its “exceptional days” policy by cancelling on Thursday’s daily auction of cheaper fixed-rate money. That followed a sharp turnaround in comments by Governor Erdem Basci this week after the lira fell around 3.5 per cent versus the dollar on the back of a cut in one of its main interest rates last month.