Foreign currency dealers have requested its member banks to maintain a benchmark for quoting exchange rates to the overseas firms engaged in remitting money to the country.
The Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers' Association (Bafeda) said the exchange rate for overseas exchange houses to be quoted by the banks will be lowered by Tk 0.10 per US dollar from their bills for collection (BC) rates.
Besides, the same method for the fixation of exchange rate will be applicable to exporters' bill negotiations, according to people who participated in the meeting.
The banks have formally quoted the average exchange rate of US dollar at Tk 84.95 per unit of the greenback in recent days for BC selling at the customers' level, the market operators said.
The BC selling rate is applied mainly to the sale transactions against import documents.
The decisions were taken at an online meeting of the executive committee of the Bafeda on Saturday with its chairman Ataur Rahman Prodhan in the chair.
The apex body of foreign exchange dealer banks reached the decisions aiming to ensure a competitive atmosphere in the country's foreign exchange market.
Currently, some commercial banks are quoting unusually high rates to the overseas exchange houses to attract more inward remittances and these rates often exceed the BC selling rates.
At the meeting, the Bafeda sought support from the central bank to keep the country's foreign exchange market stable in the coming months.
The meeting, however, appreciated the central bank's latest move to keep the foreign exchange market stable through selling the US dollar to the banks directly.
The Bafeda expects that such foreign currency support of the BB to continue to help settle import payment obligations, particularly for essential items, if necessary.
The central bank resumed selling of the US dollar to banks directly from the last week of March last after more than a month's interval to stabilise the foreign exchange market stable.
On April 13, the BB sold US$ 42 million to commercial banks directly to help settle their import payment obligations.
The central bank so far sold $601 million to mostly public banks during fiscal year (FY) 2019-20 to meet the growing demand for the greenback in the market.
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