Rand keeps on gaining

The South African rand remained on the front foot on Monday afternoon targeting R7.29/$.

The local currency also reached key technical levels against the euro amid keen buying interest both locally and internationally.

At 3.35 the rand was bid at R7.3693 to the dollar, R10.06 to the euro an R11.13 to the pound. The euro was bid at $1.3656 from $1.3636 previously.

A local currency trader said: "The bias is currently towards a strong rand with buying interest both locally and internationally. The rand hit some key technical levels against the euro, while 7.29 is the next target on the dollar. It will be interesting to see what happens as we get more activity from New York."

Earlier, the Dow Jones Newswires reported that confidence that the Greek debt crisis will now be resolved helped to boost the euro in Europe Monday.

Overall, sentiment in financial markets was much improved, helped by last Friday's stronger-than-expected US payrolls data as well as news that Japan's current account surplus was bigger than anticipated.