Fears of leak from inside Reserve Bank

Regulators are investigating a possible leak inside the Reserve Bank after the Australian dollar moved sharply in the eight seconds before yesterday's interest rate announcement.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission launched the investigation after the dollar jumped a third of a cent just before the 2:30pm announcement to keep rates at 2.25 per cent, The Daily Telegraph reports.

At 2.29pm and 52 seconds on Tuesday, eight seconds before the announcement, the dollar was trading at 76.1069c. A second later it jumped to 76.2404c.

It then jumped to 76.4055c another second later, meaning millions of dollars was changing hands every second before the rate decision was officially released.

It is the third time this year a spike in the currency has occurred just prior to an official interest rate announcement.

"ASIC is also investigating foreign exchange movements shortly before the RBA’s announcements in February and March 2015," the regulator said in a statement.

Despite fears of insider trading, a source refused to rule out the spikes were the result of a "computer generated algorithm" predicting the RBA's moves, the newspaper reports.

Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has so far refused to comment, but sought assurances in February from Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens that the rates process had not been compromised.

"Obviously I was, like he was, concerned about reports that there had been extraordinary trades before the release of the Reserve Bank decision," Mr Hockey said at the time.