Google Misquoted Exchange Rate Again, Says Malaysia Central Bank

(CTN News) – Earlier on Saturday, Malaysia’s central bank said that Google had misquoted the ringgit’s exchange rate, undervaluing the currency against the dollar, and that it would be seeking an explanation from the company about the error.

This year, the ringgit has weakened by about 2.44% against the US dollar, having plunged to a 26-year low last month. As reported by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the currency is undervalued and does not reflect Malaysia’s strong economic fundamentals at the moment.

According to the bank, Alphabet Inc’s Google published “inaccurate” information on Friday, similar to what the search engine had done on Feb. 6 when it also published “inaccurate” information.

As this is the second instance of misreporting that has been reported in the past few months, BNM will be contacting Google to get an explanation of how the inaccurate reporting occurred and the corrective measures taken. This is a recurring issue that has been plaguing Malaysia as well as other countries in recent months.

The article did not elaborate on the topic. It was not immediately possible for Google to provide a comment outside of U.S. business hours.

A disclaimer on Google’s website states that the search giant denies any obligation to verify data provided by financial exchanges and other content providers, and that it is not required to do so.

There was a Google estimate that the ringgit would trade at 4.98 per dollar on Friday,

According to BNM, while the Malaysian currency hit its weakest level on official data at 4.7075.

According to BNM, the Ringgit was quoted at 4.7015 at 9 a.m. and at 5.30 p.m. it was quoted at 4.7045 at the onshore interbank market at the time of this writing. By way of comparison, the LSEG data, which is used by a number of market participants on an international level, quotes a Friday close of 4.7020.

Last week, BNM Governor Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour said that the Malaysian government and central bank were taking coordinated steps to increase flows into the foreign exchange market to maintain the stability of the ringgit.

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