New York, Dec 15 (IANS): The US dollar increased against most major currencies on Monday as investors were awaiting the closely-watched Federal Reserve meeting scheduled later this week.

Investors widely expected that the Fed would raise interest rate at its monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday for the first time in nearly a decade, Xinhua reported.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said that the continuing improvement in the US labour market helps strengthen confidence that inflation will move back to the objective of two percent over the medium term.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, was up 0.10 percent at 97.663 in late trading.

The greenback was under pressure in the morning session on Monday amid market concerns caused by the recent slump in oil prices.

Safe-haven currencies including Japanese yen and Swiss franc climbed against the US dollar before noon but pared the gains in late trading as the oil prices rebounded.

In late New York trading, the euro increased to $1.1000 from $1.0994 in the previous session, and the British pound dropped to $1.5141 from $1.5229 in the previous session.

The Australian dollar rose to $0.7245 from $0.7191.

The US dollar bought 120.83 Japanese yen, higher than 120.78 yen of the previous session.

It hiked to 0.9851 Swiss franc from 0.9820 Swiss franc, and it went up to 1.3736 Canadian dollars from 1.3735 Canadian dollars.