Rupee woes: RBI will intervene at right time, says Axis Bk

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Ashok Gautam, Senior Vice President & Head, Global Markets, Treasury, Axis Bank spoke about the current fall in the dollar rupee and whether the RBI will intervene any time soon.  

Also read: Rupee fall unique; don't see RBI stepping in soon: Kotak Bk Below is the verbatim transcript of his interview to CNBC-TV18 Q: How are you reading this, not far from the 60 levels now that we have crossed that record low mark but it is a trend that most emerging markets (EM) currencies are witnessing and essentially the rupee then is not really an exception? A: I tend to agree with you because we were just looking at the data sometime back. If we see the one month return for the EM currency Indian rupee is actually down 5 percent. However, if you look at South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and Turkey they are little worse off than the Indian rupee. So, that is one part. EM market currencies essentially are taking a beating across the globe and India is no exception. Also, I will touch upon the part which you mentioned about the foreign institutional investor (FII) debt outflow because the data which we have been reading for sometime, from May 22 onwards more than USD 2 billion of money has been taken off from the debts by the FII. This money has gone out. If you add this onto the oil buying which continuously we are seeing in the market, rupee depreciation is certainly which is very evident now. Q: If indeed this trend of FIIs cashing out continues your near term outlook for the rupee as well do you expect any Reserve Bank of India (RBI) intervention? A: We will go by what RBI has been saying. All along they are always keeping a watch on the market. They always come in to see that whenever there is an undue volatility. So, if this is not an undue volatility they will not come in. However, this is quite volatile at this point of time and at an appropriate level certainly we will see the RBI stepping in.