MUMBAI, Dec 18 Reuters The Indian rupee on Monday will likely face challenges amid weakness in Asian peers after top Federal Reserve officials downplayed expectations of imminent interest rate cuts.

Nondeliverable forwards NDFs indicate the rupee will open at around 83.0283.04 to the U.S. dollar, compared with its previous closing at 83.00.

The rupee on Friday had its best session in more than eight months, attributed to inflows, stop losses and most importantly the Reserve Bank of India39;s decision not to intervene.

While Asian currencies are down and NDFs indicate a quiet open, it could very well be that rupee does well, based on momentum, a foreign exchange trader at a bank said.

I would think traders would want to know what is the RBI39;s tolerance for how much USDINR can drop, he said.

Asian currencies were down 0.20.4 after Fed officials pushed back on bets that the U.S. central bank will cut rates aggressively next year.

New York Fed President John Williams said the Fed isn39;t really talking about rate cuts right now and it39;s premature to speculate about them, in a CNBC interview.

These comments seem highly orchestrated and intended to stop prevent financial conditions from getting too euphoric, said Chris Weston, head of research at Melbournebased broker Pepperstone.

Williams was the first official to comment after Fed39;s interest rate projections and Chair Jerome Powell39;s remarks last week led investors to factor in a total of 150 basis points of…