• The central bank’s foreign exchange (FX) swap operations increased by $163 million to $4.870 billion in March from $4.707 billion in February, indicating that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) could be slowly building up its market intervention.
• The FX swaps are all in long positions. Holding long positions is a signal that the BSP is buying more US dollars to prop up the peso versus the greenback. Basically, the BSP conducts FX swaps to sterilize its reserves accumulation. As of end-March, the country’s gross international reserves (GIR) totaled $104.067 billion, up from end-February’s $101.994 billion.
• The BSP considers the current GIR more than adequate US dollar stock to defend the peso which has depreciated past P57 in recent weeks, but is slowly regaining strength.

https://mb.com.ph/2024/5/5/article-2241