The rupee closed at an all-time low of 83.34 against the dollar after collapsing to a record intra-day low of 83.48 amid an outage in an electronic trading platform that hit volumes.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is learnt to have sought an explanation from Refinitiv on the reasons for the glitch.

Amid the din, the RBI stayed away from the market, contrary to its strategy to keep the rupee stable through dollar sales.

The domestic unit came under pressure after the greenback gained overseas on hawkish comments made by Fed chair Jerome Powell.

“The rupee opened flat at 83.28 levels coupled with DXY (US dollar index) trading higher around the levels of 105.89. Fed policymakers including Powell on Thursday said they are still not sure that interest rates are high enough to finish the battle with inflation,” Ritesh Bhansali, director at Mecklai Financial Services, said.

“Markets digested these comments which sounded hawkish, aiding in the gains in the dollar.’’

The DXY which gauges the greenback’s strength against six currencies was trading at 105.84 after hitting a high of 105.99, intra-day on Thursday.

Softer crude oil prices — Brent was ruling at $81 per barrel — also did not come to the support of the Indian currency.

Sources said that the outage occurred around midday during the trading hours.

Participants were unable to log in to the system leading to the drying up of orders that led to the spurt in the value of the dollar amid volatility.

The rupee, which was stable till then, lost ground and sank to 83.48 levels, after which it recovered to end at 83.34.

It is understood that the RBI has asked Refinitiv to undertake a “root cause analysis” and “ascertain whether it was a system failure or human error that led to the disruption” on the platform.

The RBI has also sought an explanation from the platform to understand the circumstances leading up to the disruption and if the standard operating procedures on business continuity were triggered immediately or not.

Refinitiv, which is part of LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group), is one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure.

Apart from banks, the RBI has allowed five entities, including Refinitiv, to operate an electronic trading platform (ETP) for transactions in forex instruments.

An official from a forex firm claimed traders were unable to log in due to the outage which also affected RBI’s intervention in the inter-bank market through state-run banks. This, however, could not be independently verified.

Observers said if the rupee’s sharp fall during intra-day trades was caused on account of the glitch, it is unlikely to test those levels again.