China's central bank Friday skipped open market operations for the fifth trading day, citing abundant liquidity in the banking system.
With 10 billion yuan (1.47 billion U.S. dollars) of reverse repos maturing, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) effectively drained the same amount of liquidity from the market.
Following a 0.5-percentage-point cut in reserve requirement ratio (RRR), liquidity in the banking system was at a relatively high level, the PBOC said on its website.
Friday's RRR cut came following a reduction of 0.5 percentage points on Jan. 15, which is expected to offset liquidity fluctuations before the Spring Festival, Chinese New Year, according to a previous announcement by the central bank.
A reverse repo is a liquidity-injecting process by which the central bank purchases securities from commercial banks through bidding, with an agreement to sell them back in the future.
Friday's data shows the overnight Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate, which measures the cost at which banks lend to one another, climbed 9.9 basis points to 2.36 percent.
