MUMBAI, May 29 (Reuters) – The Indian central bank’s gains from foreign exchange transactions rose 52% to 1.69 trillion rupees ($17.70 billion) in the fiscal year ending March, according to its annual report released on Friday.
The Reserve Bank of India realises gains when it sells dollars from its reserves in the foreign exchange markets to protect the rupee, benchmarking those sales to its historical average price of dollar purchases.
In the previous year, the RBI reported a 1.11 trillion rupee gain from forex intervention. Earlier this month, the central bank said it will transfer a record 2.87 trillion rupees ($29.99 billion) to the federal government for last fiscal year, ended March 2026, after a transfer to its contingency reserves.
The RBI’s balance sheet expanded by 20.61% to 91.97 trillion rupees ($961.1 billion) as of March 31, 2026.
Alongside gains from foreign exchange operations, the RBI also earned from its investments in foreign securities, such as U.S. treasuries.
Interest income from foreign securities rose to 1.07 trillion from 970.07 billion rupees in the previous year.
($1 = 95.4650 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Ira Dugal; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar and Eileen Soreng)
