The Pakistani rupee remained stable against the US dollar in the open market on Monday, while the local currency continued to show improvement in the inter-bank.

Currency dealers Business Recorder reached out to said the rupee was quoted at 277 for selling and 274 for buying purposes for customers.

At the end of trading on Monday, the currency closed at the same rates, according to data provided by the Exchange Companies Association of Pakistan (ECAP).

During the previous week, the PKR gained Rs4.50 for both buying and selling against USD.

Meanwhile, the rupee closed at 276.83 level against the greenback in the inter-bank market.

Under one of the structural benchmarks set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), gap between rates in the inter-bank and open markets is required to be less than 1.25%.

The ongoing appreciation comes after the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) scaled up efforts to clip the wings of the high-flying dollar and announced a list of “structural reforms” last month, targeting the Exchange Companies (ECs).

In a recent development, the central bank suspended the authorisation of another five exchange companies of ‘B’ category for noncompliance of rules and regulations.

With strict actions, the central bank has become more vigilant on exchange companies. During the last one month, authorisation of 9 exchange companies has been suspended for serious violations.

Apart from central bank measures, the caretaker setup also announced taking administrative steps to tighten the screws around smuggling and hoarding of currency and as a result, countrywide raids were reported with dozens of illegal currency exchanges barred from running operations and foreign currency worth millions confiscated.