Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM) recently announced the organization of auctions for the purchase of currencies from market operators. The purpose of this operation is to absorb the current surpluses on the foreign exchange market and ensure its proper functioning.

The Central Bank bought back, during the first two auctions, organized on Monday and Tuesday, 410 million dollars and then 260 million dollars from these operators in return for the dirham, at the respective prices of 8.9939 and 8.9834 dollars per dirham. . These auction sessions take place in a context where Moroccan banks, at the end of the summer, found themselves in possession of large quantities of foreign currency, supplied mainly by contributions from Moroccans residing abroad (MRE), following the opening of national borders last June. The spectacular increase in transfers from Moroccans living abroad to Morocco also contributed to this upturn.

This operation makes it possible to avoid a crisis of excess liquidity in the foreign exchange market. This would make it possible to improve banks' liquidity in dirhams, which will of course enable them to improve their financial situation as well as their capacity to grant loans, recalling, in this sense, that the financial situation of banks has been heavily damaged by the Covid-19 crisis. These foreign currency contributions have considerably improved the bank's foreign exchange position, defined by the positive or negative balance of a credit institution in a currency. According to a recent note from Attijari Global Research (AGR), the banking foreign exchange position "remains at its annual high of more than 10 billion dirhams".