Dhaka, Oct. 18 -- Commercial banks' foreign-exchange (forex) holdings plummeted to $3.94 billion in September, mainly due to the central bank's growing US dollar-buying interventions, according to officials and money-market experts.

The Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, as part of its market intervention strategy, has continued to purchase US dollars from the interbank spot market through auctions to prevent the fall in dollar-taka pricing. This intervention has been reflected in the official data on forex-holding situation of banks, they said.

Official BB data show that the gross foreign exchange held by commercial banks stood at $3.94 billion in September, a decline of over 10 per cent from $4.36 billion in the previou...