MOSCOW, Nov 17 (Reuters) - The volume of currency swaps performed by Russia's central bank jumped several-fold last month, data showed on Monday, illustraing that currency speculators were piling on bets against the rouble.
Dollar currency swaps totalled $26.44 billion in October, more than tripling from September's $8.04 billion.
The less common euro swap totalled 15.75 billion euros ($19.9 billion) compared to just 2.47 billion in September.
In a bid to discourage currency speculators from betting against the rouble, Russia introduced daily limits on how much foreign currency banks can swap in the central bank from Oct. 20. Deals not involving the central bank remain unaffected.
In the last 11 days of October, currency swaps with the central bank were capped at a total of 320 billion roubles ($11.67 billion). Thus in the first two-thirds of the month, prior to the introduction of the caps, euro and dollar swaps totalled at least $34.67 billion.
Since the start of November, the daily central bank currency swap limits have added up to 135 billion roubles.
(Reporting by Toni Vorobyova; Editing by Ron Askew) ($1=.7908 Euro) ($1=27.43 Rouble) Keywords: RUSSIA SWAP/MONTH

(antonina.vorobyova@reuters.com; Tel: +7495 7751242, Reuters Messaging: antonina.vorobyova.reuters.com@reuters.net)

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