BREAKING: 🇮🇳 RBI announces new measures to defend the Indian Rupee. 1/ Direct dollar supply: From October 12, the RBI will meet the full daily dollar needs of IOC, HPCL and BPCL, reducing their demand in the open forex market. 2/ Higher cost for large trades: Banks must maintain a 20% cash reserve with the RBI for specified rupee-linked forex derivative contracts, making these trades more expensive. 3/ $100M to $5M: The limit for rupee-linked derivative positions without an underlying exposure has been sharply reduced from $100 million to $5 million. 4/ No cancellation and rebooking: Cancelled rupee-linked forex derivative contracts can no longer be rebooked. Rollovers at maturity are still allowed. 5/ Stricter hedging checks: Banks must ensure the same underlying exposure is not being used to justify multiple hedges. The goal is clear:- Reduce dollar demand in the market, curb speculative forex activity and ease pressure on the rupee. These measures could help stabilise the currency, but they are not a guaranteed fix. Oil prices, global dollar strength and capital flows will continue to matter. Source: RBI