Mumbai: The rupee today fell by 16 paise to 40.68/69 against the greenback on sustained dollar buying by banks and bearish equity markets.

In active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic unit opened slightly lower at 40.55/57 a dollar against last Friday's close of 40.52/53 a dollar.

It later dipped further to quote at 40.68/69 in late morning deals.

Dealers attributed weakness in the rupee to distinctly weak equity markets. The Indian benchmark Sensex was down by another 517.79 points to 15,457.73 at 11 am.

Asian markets also displayed feeble trend this morning.

Dollar buying by banks on behalf of their clients, mainly oil refiners, also weighed on the rupee sentiment, dealers said.
Source : PTI