Central bank shores up Australian dollar

Australia’s central bank has been buying Australian dollars to provide the market with certainty and liquidity amid a plunge in the currency’s value.

A spokesman said today that the Reserve Bank of Australia “acted to provide liquidity to the market on Friday night and again this morning”.

He declined to say how much the bank had spent on the interventions.

The Australian dollar reached 25-year highs against the US dollar and appeared to be approaching parity earlier this year, until the global financial crisis sent it plummeting in the past three months.