BackState Bank of Travancore cuts base rate to 10.15%
The new rates will be applicable from 16 March
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New Delhi: State Bank of Travancore on Monday became the first bank to cut benchmark lending rate, or base rate, by 0.1% to 10.15%, almost a week after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) slashed policy rate by 0.25%.
“The revised base rate will be 10.15% and the benchmark prime lending rate will be 15.15%. At present, the rates are 10.25% and 15.25%, respectively," SBT said in a filing to the BSE.
The new rates will be applicable from 16 March 2015, it added. Last week, the Reserve Bank had lowered the key repo rate—at which it lends to banks—by 0.25% to 7.5%. It was the second surprise and out-of-policy rate cut, after a similar slash in repo rate to 7.75% in mid-January.
There has been a constant pressure from industry and other stakeholders on the central bank to cut repo rate so as to spur the investment cycle. However, banks have not been very keen to pass on the benefit and only a few of them slashed their interest rates after RBI’s move in January.
India is witnessing an avalanche of capital flows as central banks around the world are reducing interest rates to very low levels but the RBI is unable to cut interest rates very quickly due to high inflation, governor Raghuram Rajan had said after cutting the repo rate.
Also, RBI in an agreement with the government recently, has committed to use monetary tools to cut inflation to pre-decided levels. The Monetary Policy Framework Agreement binds RBI to use monetary policy tools, including fixation of interest rates, to bring down inflation to less than 6% by January 2016 and to around 4% by March next year.
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