Parallel Market Rate

A parallel market rate is the price at which a currency changes hands outside the official channel, in an economy where the official rate is administered and access to foreign exchange is rationed. It is quoted by whoever is willing to transact at it, and the gap between it and the official rate is the usual shorthand for how binding the rationing has become. Two things make it unusable as market data. It is not a single market with a settlement mechanism, so quotes vary by counterparty, location and size, and none of them are backed by the reporting a regulated venue produces. And it is legally exposed: transacting at it may itself be an offence in the jurisdiction concerned, which is why regulated brokers do not offer it and why no reputable data feed carries it as a tradable price. Where the administered rate is the only official one, an offshore forward market is the usual way the currency gets priced without being delivered.