RBI TAKES SMALL STEPS TO DEEPEN MARKETS

INDIAN RUPEE WEAKENS TO LOWEST SINCE MARCH 4

The Indian rupee fell as low as 61.95 per dollar on Wednesday, its weakest level since March 4, as traders unwound positions ahead of holidays and at a time when the greenback is gaining globally.

The pair was last traded at 61.92, weaker than its 61.7450/61.7550 close on Tuesday.

Markets will be closed from Thursday to Monday due to festivals.

India's central bank said on Tuesday it will gradually lower the ceiling on bonds that can be held-to-maturity (HTM) starting in January, while further easing currency hedging rules for importers in moves to boost trading in markets.

The Reserve Bank of India also announced it would extend the period that foreign investors can settle their over-the-counter government bonds to two days of their trade from one, a measure that traders speculated could be aimed to facilitate the settlement of debt in the Euroclear platform.

India is considering joining Euroclear, the world's largest securities settlement system.

The slew of measures contained in a monetary policy review on Tuesday, demonstrated the RBI's focus on developing markets under Governor Raghuram Rajan.

"The impact of reduction in HTM assets is marginally negative for bonds. There are lots of small things announced, but they are important for the market in the medium term," said Kumar Rachapudi, senior rates strategist with ANZ in Singapore.

The central bank said it would cut the ceiling on bonds that can be held-to-maturity from the current 24 per cent to 22 per cent in stages, starting in the two-week cycle from January 10, 2015. It expects to complete the process by September 2015.

The action could prompt banks to trade debt more actively as it will reduce the incentive of parking securities until maturity and force lenders to mark more securities to market on a daily basis, leading to potential gains or losses.

The RBI also raised the limit for some importers hedging currency exposure to 100 per cent of their average import turnover over the previous three years or the preceding year's import turnover, whichever is higher. The previous limit was at 50 per cent.

The central bank also announced several measures related to trading government bonds, including easing rules for short-selling, and said it would continue injecting funds via one-day term repos, or cash-for-loans transactions, to keep money markets less volatile.

The RBI kept its key policy repo rate on hold at 8.0 per cent, as widely expected, and also left other major policy tools unchanged.