The Croatian kuna firmed marginally against the euro on Friday, while local banks raised interest rates in their direct deals. The kuna traded at 7.3275/7.3375 per euro, a touch stronger from Thursday's 7.3300/7.3360 on the local foreign exchange market.
"We expect kuna liquidity to improve from mid-January, partly due to the central bank's decision to pay back to the banks liquidity bills to which they had to subscribe when exceeding credit growth above the set limit this year," Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank said in its daily bulletin.
On the local money market, the benchmark overnight lending rate rose to 8.50 percent from 7.86 percent.