On March 11th, 2015, the Foreign Exchange Commission, composed by officials from the Ministry of Finance and Banco de México, and which is responsible for Mexico's foreign exchange policy, announced (see press release and circular 5/2015) that, due to the volatility that continued to be observed in the international financial markets, and in order to prevent that additional pressures could disturb the orderly functioning of the local exchange market, it was convenient to establish a mechanism to reduce the accumulation pace of Banco de México’s international reserves during the next three months. Therefore, it was determined that one fourth of the projected international reserves accumulation for the next 12 months would be sold in the local exchange markets, and the following changes to the intervention policy were announced:

• Starting March 11th, 2015, USD 52 million will be sold daily through an auction mechanism implemented by Banco de México.
• In addition, daily US dollar auctions at a minimum price for the dollar of 1.015 times the Mexican peso, as determined by the preceding business day’s FIX, will continue. The daily amount to be auctioned is USD 200 million.

This new intervention policy was programmed to remain in place until September 29th, 2015. However, on July 30th, 2015, in order to reduce the probability that additional pressures could disturb the orderly functioning of the local exchange markets, the Foreign Exchange Commission determined to modify such mechanism, by increasing the amount sold in the auctions from USD 52 million to USD 200 million. This amount will remain in place until September 30th, 2015. In addition, the price to the daily US dollar auctions at a minimum price changed from 1.015 times the Mexican peso, as determined by the preceding business day’s FIX, to 1.01 times.

This mechanism remained present in the market until November 23rd, 2015, then the Foreign Exchange Commission determined to suspend it (see press release). The implementation of this intervention policy was equivalent to a USD 20,696 sale in the market (see historical series).