
Unsterilized Intervention A central bank's attempt to influence exchange rates by refusing to buy or sell assets or currencies. This allows the money supply to change without interference of the central bank.
What is the difference between unsterilized intervention and sterilized intervention?
An unsterilized intervention has impacts on the monetary base or money supply, while a sterilized intervention has no effects on the monetary base. Imagine that a country’s currency is losing value – it is depreciating. Its central bank may decide to intervene in the foreign exchange market by creating artificial demand for its domestic currency.
What is a'sterilized intervention'?
What is a 'Sterilized Intervention'. A sterilized intervention is the purchase or sale of foreign currency by a central bank to influence the exchange value of the domestic currency, without changing the monetary base.
What is unsterilized foreign exchange intervention?
The term unsterilized foreign exchange intervention refers to how a country's monetary authorities influence exchange rates and its money supply —by not purchasing foreign or by not selling domestic currencies or assets. This kind of approach is considered passive to exchange rate fluctuations, allowing for fluctuations in the monetary base.
What is sterilized intervention in forex?
According to Nasdaq’s glossary of terms, sterilized intervention is: “Foreign exchange market activity by which monetary authorities insulate their domestic money supplies from the foreign exchange transactions with offsetting sales or purchases of domestic assets.”.

What is sterilized and unsterilized intervention?
The open market operation effectively offsets or sterilizes the impact of the intervention on the monetary base. If the sale or purchase of the foreign currency is not accompanied by an open market operation, it would amount to an unsterilized intervention.
What is the difference between sterilized and non-sterilized intervention?
If the intervention has no impact on the short- term interest rate, it is sterilised. If the short-term interest rate is affected, the intervention is non-sterilised. Non-sterilised intervention may impact the exchange rate through various channels.
Is sterilized or unsterilized intervention more effective?
In theory, sterilized foreign exchange interventions tend to be less effective at moving exchange rates than unsterilized interventions.
What happens during a sterilized forex intervention?
Sterilized Intervention A sterilized foreign exchange intervention occurs when the central bank buys a foreign currency and offsets the increase in the domestic currency by selling domestic government securities, which decreases the money supply by the amount of the securities.
What are the effects of an unsterilized intervention in the forex market?
Unsterilized interventions allow foreign exchange markets to function without manipulating the domestic currency supply, so a country's monetary base can change.
What is non sterilization?
Non-sterilized intervention refers to the intervention in the foreign exchange market without adjusting for the change in money supply.
Why do central banks buy foreign currency?
Central banks hold foreign exchange reserves for several reasons, including: To help keep the value of their domestic currency at a fixed rate. To keep a domestic currency lower than the dollar. To maintain liquidity in case of economic crisis.
Why is RBI selling dollars?
The RBI has been selling dollars to curb excessive volatility in the exchange rate and prevent runaway depreciation in the rupee.
How do central banks buy and sell currency?
1 By trading large amounts of its own currency, these central banks can influence the money's value. For instance, if a central bank wanted to increase the value of its currency, it might intervene in foreign exchanges and buy its own currency.
What is the process of sterilization?
Sterilization describes a process that destroys or eliminates all forms of microbial life and is carried out in health-care facilities by physical or chemical methods.
What is sterilization policy?
Sterilization is a form of monetary action in which a central bank seeks to limit the effect of inflows and outflows of capital on the money supply. Sterilization most frequently involves the purchase or sale of financial assets by a central bank and is designed to offset the effect of foreign exchange intervention.
What happens when the Fed buys foreign currency?
Thus when the Fed buys pounds and sells dollars on the Forex, there will be an increase in the U.S. money supply. The higher U.S. money supply will lower U.S. interest rates, reduce the rate of return on U.S. assets as viewed by international investors, and result in a depreciation of the dollar.
What is effectiveness of an intervention?
Intervention studies can be placed on a continuum, with a progression from efficacy trials to effectiveness trials. Efficacy can be defined as the performance of an intervention under ideal and controlled circumstances, whereas effectiveness refers to its performance under 'real-world' conditions.
Why is sterilization important in microbiology?
Disinfection and sterilization are essential for ensuring that medical and surgical instruments do not transmit infectious pathogens to patients.
Why is it important to sterilize tools?
Sterilization destroys all microorganisms on the surface of an article or in a fluid to prevent disease transmission associated with the use of that item.
What is the sterilization process?
Sterilization refers to any process that removes, kills, or deactivates all forms of life (particularly microorganisms such as fungi, bacteria, spores, and unicellular eukaryotic organisms) and other biological agents such as prions present in or on a specific surface, object, or fluid.
What is partially unsterilized intervention?
For now, partially unsterilized intervention is perceived as a means of expanding the monetary base of Japan, a basic element of monetary policy. The former type is called unsterilized intervention while the latter is referred to as sterilized intervention.
What is central bank intervention?
A central bank's attempt to influence exchange rates by refusing to buy or sell assets or currencies. This allows the money supply to change without interference of the central bank. See also: Sterilized intervention, floating currency.
Who led the last international investigation?
The last official international investigation led by Philipe Jurgensen for the G7 in 1982 concluded that only unsterilized intervention was of much use. The case against a dollar policy.
What is an example of a central bank's unsterilized intervention?
When the central bank uses an unsterilized intervention this changes the money supply in economy. An example of this could be a helicopter money drop. The increase in the amount of money leads to a real balance sheet effect. This example is when government just credits households’ bank account, which incentivises the latter to spend.
What is the purpose of sterilization?
Sterilized intervention is when the central bank makes a purchase of an asset, then sells a corresponding asset to try to keep the “money supply” fixed. So the idea behind sterilization is that it should NOT have monetary policy effects.
What is a sterilized intervention?
Sterilized intervention is the purchase or sale of foreign currency by a central bank to influence the exchange value of the domestic currency, without changing the monetary base. Sterilized intervention involves two separate transactions: 1) the sale or purchase of foreign currency assets, and 2) an open market operation involving ...
What was the cause of sterilization?
Towards the end of the last century, a common cause of many sterilized interventions was a high money supply which pushed local interest rates below the international average, which created the conditions for a carry trade —market participants would borrow at home and lend abroad at a higher interest rate.
Do sterilized interventions reduce the money supply?
As sterilized interventions do not reduce an already-high money supply, domestic interest rates will still be low. Participants continue borrowing at home and lending abroad and the central bank has to intervene again if it wants to prevent any future depreciation of its domestic currency.
Why are interventions conducted?
Interventions, therefore, are conducted to blunt large currency moves caused by major events or market uncertainties that would normally have only a temporary effect on the exchange rate. For instance, during the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese yen was increasing in strength because it was feared that insurance companies would ...
What is a sterilized foreign exchange intervention?
A sterilized foreign exchange intervention occurs when the central bank buys a foreign currency and offsets the increase in the domestic currency by selling domestic government securities, which decreases the money supply by the amount of the securities.
Why does the Fed not sterilize foreign exchange?
Because the Fed does not use its own reserves for the intervention, it does not need to sterilize the intervention.
How many transactions are required for sterilized foreign exchange?
A sterilized foreign exchange involves at least 2 transactions — the purchase or sale of foreign currency reserves, followed by an open market operation of the same size to offset the impact of the first transaction on the monetary base.
What is sterilized intervention?
Sterilized intervention refers to a central bank’s purchase or sale of foreign exchange in the market; the aim being to influence the exchange rate. If the action has no effect on the short-term interest rate, it is a sterilized intervention.
How effective is sterilization intervention?
Sterilized intervention to stop a currency’s decline is only effective in the medium term if whatever is causing the currency’s depreciation is addressed . If the currency falls because of a speculative attack based on some kind of political uncertainty, sterilization intervention usually resolves the problem permanently.
Does sterilizing intervention reduce the money supply?
As sterilizing intervention does not reduce an already high money supply, domestic interest rates will still be low. Participants continue borrowing at home and lending abroad and the central bank has to intervene again if it wants to prevent any future depreciation of its domestic currency.
Answer
Sterilized intervention is done to make sure that no change is made to the money supply. In this case, the short-term interest rate is not impacted by the intervention.
Answer
Intervention is a term that is used to to describe a central banks' purchase or sale of foreign exchange in the market in order to influence the exchange rate.

What Is Sterilized Intervention?
Understanding Sterilized Interventions
- One of the main tools used by the Federal Reserve to influence monetary policy is its target for the federal funds rate, which is set by the Federal Open Market Committee primarily to achieve domestic objectives. Since the Federal Reserve would never permit its intervention activities to have an impact on its monetary policy operations, it always uses sterilized intervention. Central …
Example of Sterilized Intervention
- Consider a simple example of sterilized intervention. Assume that the Federal Reserve is concerned about the weakness of the dollar against the euro. It, therefore, sells euro-denominated bonds in the amount of EUR 10 billion, and it receives $14 billion in proceeds from the bond sale. Since the withdrawal of $14 billion from the banking system to ...
Sterilized Intervention vs. Carry Trade
- Towards the end of the last century, a common cause of many sterilized interventions was a high money supply which pushed local interest rates below the international average, which created the conditions for a carry trade—market participants would borrow at home and lend abroad at a higher interest rate. Carry trade exerts downward pressure on the currency being borrowed. As s…