KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 (Bernama) -- The ringgit ended on a softer note against the greenback Wednesday on continuing strong demand for the greenback, a dealer said.
At 5pm, the local unit was quoted at 3.3600/3650 to a dollar compared with Tuesday's closing of 3.3380/3430.
RHB Bank's forex dealer, Nur Adeline Baharin said demand for the US currency as a safe haven increased globally against concerns that Chinese banks were slowing down lending.
She said there was fresh rumours that banks had been told to suspend lending for the rest of January.
"We saw selling-through on the local currency. Traders are buying back the dollar. We expect all major currencies to see further pressure in the nerm-term," she said.
A positive note on Malaysia's December Consumer Price Index failed to support the market, she added.
Malaysia's CPI in December rose by 1.1 per cent from a year ago, marking the end of six straight months of technical deflation.
The Statistics Department on Wednesday said that CPI rose by 0.2 per cent in December from November.
As against other currencies on Wednesday, the ringgit declined against the Singapore dollar to 2.4052/4110 from 2.4035/4095 on Tuesday.
It also eased against the Japanese yen to 3.6927/7006 from 3.6925/6984 previously.
The ringgit, however rose against the euro to 4.7709/7793 from yesterday's 4.8047/8129 and strengthened against the British pound to 5.4694/4796 from 5.4696/4792 previously.
