The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) has revised the mechanism by which it provides USD to banks in the Egyptian market. The CBE previously used a quota system by which it would sell an established volume of USD at weekly auctions. Under the revised system, banks will submit requests to the CBE detailing investors’ expected demand for USD, according to sources. The CBE will then compile the reports for review before allocating currency to each bank. Banks are obliged to use the currency deployments to fund products that the CBE has approved for import. In the second week of the system’s application, the CBE allocated USD120 million to finance food commodity imports. The CBE currently sells USD to banks at a price of EGP8.78/USD. Banks are obliged to offer customers an exchange rate of EGP8.88/USD. (The Daily News Egypt)