The interbank foreign exchange market saw the national currency appreciate against the US dollar this morning. The trading session started with the UAH/USD exchange rate at 15.75 UAH = 1 USD.

"Today we have seen the first positive results of the auction. The hryvnia exchange rate has started to appreciate. This is good news as it means that there exporters willing to sell foreign exchange earnings at this exchange rate and there are importers unwilling to purchase foreign exchange. The banks have seen this trend and reflected it in their bids submitted to the regulator," noted Head of the NBU Office for Foreign Exchange Operations and Financial Markets Analysis Serhii Ponomarenko.

He added that the weighted average exchange rate of the hryvnia was UAH 15.7350 per USD 1 based upon the results of today's auction. The cut-off rate was UAH 15.6075 per USD 1.

In addition, Serhii Ponomarenko unveiled new rules under which the foreign exchange auction was conducted on November 12, 2014. "It was decided to use the weighted average exchange rate as a benchmark. This means that the bids quoting the bid price at the level of the weighted average exchange rate or lower than that were accepted first. In my opinion, this method meets the expectations of the auction participants.