MUMBAI: After remaining net purchaser of dollars for the first four months of the current fiscal, the Reserve Bank sold a net of $1.559 billion in August in the spot market.

RBI intervention in the foreign exchange market is generally aimed at curbing volatility in the currency market.

The central bank bought $4.486 billion from the market while it sold $6.045 billion in the reporting month, RBI said in its monthly bulletin release.

Last year, in August RBI had sold $511 million on a net basis.

The central bank had net purchased $169 million in July this year. It had bought $4.123 billion and sold $3.954 billion in the spot market.

The net amount purchased by RBI in April and May was $5.431 billion and $2.578 billion respectively.

In FY15, RBI was net purchaser of $54.837 billion, when it had bought $124.414 billion and sold $69.577 billion.

In the forwards dollar market, the outstanding net forward purchase at the end of August stood at $2.901 billion as against purchase of $4.599 billion as of end July.

Read More: RBL Bank Selects Clover Infotech For Managing Core Applications

ICICI Bank Launches In-Store Mobile-Based Payments With 'mVisa'