Romanian leu ends nearly flat vs euro

The leu ended at 4.5330/5350 per euro compared to 4.5320/5350 on Friday.

The leu opened at 4.5320/5350 per euro and traded in very low volumes during the trading session, reaching an intraday low of 4.5370/5380 in the afternoon, a local dealer told SeeNews, adding that the leu ran into resistance at 4.53.

“In the morning we saw low sales [of euro] by local players, most probably related to the results from the parliamentary elections, which were according to expectations,” the dealer added.

“As most populist campaign promises will sooner or later have to be scrapped, we do not see any major fiscal risks (as some market participants might) and there may even be some upward potential for the leu,” Raiffeisen Research said in a daily note on Monday.

Romania's central bank, BNR, set its reference exchange rate at 4.5339 lei per euro on Monday, compared to 4.5349 lei per euro on Friday. For the U.S. dollar, BNR set the reference exchange rate at 3.5133 lei versus 3.5067 lei on Friday.

BNR injected 4.0 billion lei in the interbank money market on Monday through a one-week repo deal at a rate of 5.25%, equal to its key monetary rate. Last Monday, it also injected 4.0 billion lei in the interbank money market.

Turnover on the Romanian interbank leu deposit market dropped to 1.2 billion lei on Friday from 2.1 billion lei on Thursday. The central bank will issue Monday’s turnover figure on Tuesday.

Interest rates on overnight leu deposits inched down to 5.12%/5.62% from 5.16%/5.66% on Friday.