MUMBAI: For the fourth consecutive month, the Reserve Bank became a net purchaser of dollars after it bought $ 5.453 billion in July from the spot market.

The amount of dollars purchased in the month by the central bank was the highest at $9.348 billion in the reporting month, RBI monthly data showed.

The apex bank sold $3.895 billion dollars in the spot market in July.

Last year in the same month, RBI was a net seller of the greenback after it purchased $50 million and sold $6.026 billion.

In June, RBI had bought $3.332 billion from the market while it sold $2.735 billion.

In the entire FY14, RBI net purchased $8.992 billion. It had bought $52.394 billion and sold $43.402 billion in the previous fiscal.

The central bank's intervention in the foreign exchange market is to curb volatility in the currency market.

In the forwards dollar market, the outstanding net forward purchase at the end of July stood at $5.397 billion as against sales of $154 million in the previous month.