KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 — Short-term interbank rates closed steady today on Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) operations to absorb surplus liquidity from the financial system.

Liquidity in the conventional system widened to RM43.79 billion from RM41.19 billion this morning while Islamic funds fell to RM20.20 billion from RM24.26 billion previously.

The central bank had earlier called for three conventional money market tenders and Qard tenders, a Commodity Murabahah Programme (CMP) tender each as well as two reverse repo tenders.

BNM had revised conventional overnight tender from RM40.2 billion to RM42.8 billion and Murabahah overnight tender from RM19.1 billion to RM19.2 billion.

At 4 pm, it called for a RM42.8 billion conventional money market tender and a RM19.2 billion Murabahah money market tender, both for one-day money.

The average Islamic overnight rate stood at 1.72 per cent while the one-, two- and three-week rates stood at 1.78 per cent, 1.82 per cent and 1.85 per cent respectively. — Bernama