INDIA RUPEE-Rupee likely to inch higher tracking non-deliverable forwards

By Anushka Trivedi and Nimesh Vora MUMBAI, March 27 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee, in spite of weak Asian cues, is poised to open slightly higher versus the U.S. dollar on Monday, tracking the non-deliverable forwards. The 1-month non-deliverable forward indicates the rupee will open at around 82.40 to the U.S. dollar compared with 82.48 in the previous session. The slightly higher opening indicated by NDF comes on the back of a week that saw the local currency in an 82.07 to 82.70 range. A dovish Federal Reserve was countered by flare-ups in the banking crisis after a selloff in Deutsche Bank shares. The rupee on Friday came under pressure later in the session on account of worries over Deutsche Bank.

The currency's moves later on Friday were a bit exaggerated with European markets in a bit of panic, said a trader at a Mumbai-based bank. The rupee will "try to correct itself" at open today, he added. Few traders pointed to the possibility of inflows in the final week of March helping the rupee this week. The rupee's Asian peers were mostly weak and the dollar index added to Friday's advance. Asian equity gauges were mostly lower despite U.S. equities rounding off last week on a positive note. The focus of investors was squarely on the developments related to the U.S. and European banking systems. The failure of two U.S. regional banks and Credit Suisse's fall this month have triggered fears of a banking contagion and prompted global regulators to calm markets. "Hopes that central banks will be able to ring-fence the banking crisis and prevent large contagion dominate worries about rising banking system vulnerabilities," Srinivas Puni, managing director at QuantArt Market Solutions, said. "The movement in currencies, including the rupee, is dependent now on day-to-day news headlines around the bank crisis."

KEY INDICATORS:

** One-month non-deliverable rupee forward at 82.59; onshore one-month forward premium at 18.75 paise

** USD/INR NSE March futures settled on Friday at 82.45

** USD/INR March forward premium is 0.75 paise

** Dollar index rises to 103.08

** Brent crude futures little changed at $75 per barrel

** Ten-year U.S. note yield at 3.38%

** SGX Nifty nearest-month futures up 0.6% at 17,017

** As per NSDL data, foreign investors bought a net $47 mln worth of Indian shares on Mar. 23

** NSDL data shows foreign investors sold a net $71.6 mln worth of Indian bonds on Mar. 23 (Reporting by Nimesh Vora; editing by Eileen Soreng)