PRESS RELEASE
Bank of Albania interventions in the money market and foreign exchange market over Q1 2015

1.1. Open market operations

 Money market interventions during 2015 Q1 consisted in open market operations for injecting temporary liquidity and permanent operations for structuring Bank of Albania's portfolio.

The total amount of injected liquidity averaged ALL 21.30 billion, from ALL 28.21 billion in 2014 Q4. The averaged injected liquidity was close to the level of 2014 Q1, when it amounted to around ALL 21.22 billion.

To inject temporary liquidity, the Bank of Albania employed its main instrument, the one-week reverse repurchase agreement - on average, ALL 16.37 billion a week*, and the one-month reverse repurchase agreement, on average, ALL 2.49 billion a week*.

Overnight injecting transactions were employed in six cases, being concentrated at the end of the reserve maintenance period.

At the end of the first quarter 2015, it was restarted with the outright transactions, which aimed at lowering BoA's participation in T-bills.  In 2015 Q1, an outright sale auction of six-months Treasury bills was organized for the amount of ALL 500 million.  Hence, as at end of 2015 Q1, BoA's portfolio was ALL 500 million lower than at the beginning of the year.

1.2. Use of standing facilities

The overnight deposit facility was employed 46 times, averaging ALL 6.74 billion, against 35 cases in the previous quarter, averaging ALL 5.39 billion.

The overnight loan was employed in 10 cases, corresponding to the end of the maintenance period for ALL 2.61 billion, on average.  In the previous quarter, overnight loan was employed twice, for ALL 1.95 billion and ALL 2.39 billion, respectively.