Further strengthening of J$ with another BFXITT planned operation next week

Durrant Pate/Contributor

Further strengthening of the Jamaican currency is expected over the next two weeks with the planned Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) B-FXITT interventions.

The BOJ is scheduled to carry out two Standard Sale B-FXITT operations for May 21 and May 28, 2026, which will augment current USD liquidity in the foreign exchange (FX) market. For the last week, the Jamaican dollar remained relatively flat against the USD, with US$1 selling for J$159.03, slightly up from J$158.93 at the start of the week.

However, the Jamaican dollar could strengthen over the next two weeks with the scheduled injection of USD into the FX market.

Money market liquidity 

Liquidity in the money market, as measured by the aggregated current balances held by Deposit-Taking Institutions (DTIs) increased with the total aggregate current balance closing last week at J$52.09 billion, up from J$42.48 billion, recorded the previous week.

In money market operations, the BOJ 30-day Certificate of Deposit (CD) auction was oversubscribed with total bids received amounting to J$32.53 billion for a total offer amount of J$15.00 billion, implying a 2.17x bid-to-offer ratio. 

This represents a 70 basis point (bps) increase from the previous week’s 1.47x ratio, as the offer size was reduced by 31.8% or J$7.00 billion. The average yield remained relatively stable at 5.65%, which is 5 bps lower than the prior week’s. 

The BOJ also conducted a 14-day repo auction last week, offering J$1.00 billion in liquidity. Total bids received was J$2.80 billion, giving a 2.8x bid-to-offer ratio.

The weighted average yield settled at 5.84%, which is a 27 bps increase compared with the prior auction’s average of 5.57%.