PRESS RELEASE
Bank of Albania interventions in the money market and foreign exchange market over 2013 Q3

1.1. Open market operations

Money market interventions during 2013 Q3 consisted of open market operations for injecting liquidity and permanent operations for structuring Bank of Albania's portfolio.

The total amount of injected liquidity averaged ALL 17.38 billion, from ALL 18.89 billion in 2013 Q2. Average injected liquidity was only 2% lower than a year earlier, when it amounted to ALL 17.8 billion.  

To inject liquidity, the Bank of Albania employed its main instrument, the one-week reverse repurchase agreement - on average, ALL 14.42 billion a week* - and one-month reverse repurchase agreement - on average, ALL 1.88 billion a week*. The overnight injection operation was only used once to adjust the amount of liquidity in the system on the last day of the required reserve maintenance period, on 23 September 2013.

To structure the Bank of Albania's portfolio, aiming at lowering 3 and 6-month T-bills and increasing 12-month issues, the Bank of Albania conducted outright transactions, which consisted of a transaction for the sale of newly-issued 3-month T-bill at ALL 600 million?x, and four open market interventions for the purchase of 12-month T-bills, followed by attempts to conduct bilateral transactions, which finalised with the purchase of 12-month T-bills amounting to ALL 560 million.

1.2. Use of standing facilities

During 2013 Q3, the overnight deposit facility was employed 64 times, averaging ALL 1.98 billion. In Q2, the same instrument recorded similar average but it was employed at a lower frequency, concentrated in only 28 days of the quarter.

The overnight loan facility was employed three times, averaging ALL 2.30 billion. It was concentrated in the last days of the three required reserve maintenance periods. In 2013 Q2, this instrument was employed four times and averaged ALL 2.02 billion.