Sri Lanka has settled its currency swap facility with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as scheduled, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) announced today (05).

“The CBSL settled its Swap facility with Reserve Bank of India as scheduled. There was no special request from India for a premature settlement as erroneously reported by certain media outlets. Discussions on future collaboration continue,” CBSL tweeted.

The CBSL settled its Swap facility with Reserve Bank of India as scheduled. There was no special request from India for a premature settlement as erroneously reported by certain media outlets. Discussions on future collaboration continue.

— CBSL (@CBSL) February 5, 2021

The Reserve Bank of India in July 2020 signed necessary documents for extending a US$ 400 million currency swap facility to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka till November 2022.

Further, last year Sri Lanka appealed to India to extend $ 1.1 billion in urgent financing support to ease pressures related to foreign currency reserves — seen as a fallout of the covid-19 pandemic devastating the tourism industry in the country. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa put forth the request during a telephone conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The SAARC currency swap facility came into operation on November 15, 2012. Under the Facility, Reserve Bank of India offers swaps of varying sizes in US Dollars, Euro or Indian Rupee to each SAARC member country.