A day after the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Monetary Policy Committee hiked the policy repo rate by 50 basis points (bps), several commercial banks, including ICICI Bank and Bank of Baroda, raised their external benchmark-linked loan rates by an equal amount on Thursday. HDFC, the country's largest mortgage lender, too, increased its interest rates on housing loans by another 50 bps. In total, it has raised rates by 85 bps since May 4, when the RBI had increased the repo rate by 40 bps in an off-cycle meeting.
India decisively withstood global headwinds in 2023 and is likely to remain as the world's fastest-growing major economy on the back of growing demand, moderate inflation, stable interest rate regime and robust foreign exchange reserves. Despite widespread pessimism witnessed among the developed nations and the worsening geopolitical situation, India recorded a gross domestic product (GDP) expansion of 6.1 per cent in the March quarter. The growth moved up to 7.8 per cent in the June quarter and was 7.6 per cent in the September quarter. For the first six months of this fiscal, the growth was 7.7 per cent.
Investors saw their wealth rise by more than Rs 3.96 lakh crore on Wednesday as stocks continued their rally for the second straight session amid the Reserve Bank reiterating its accommodative stance and easing concerns over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The 30-share Sensex soared 1,016.03 points or 1.76 per cent to close at 58,649.68 and all the constituent stocks, except for two, closed in the green. Most of the rate-sensitive auto, banking and realty stocks registered gains during the day's trade. While the BSE Auto index rose 2.24 per cent, BSE Bankex went up 1.61 per cent and BSE Realty spurted 1.72 per cent.
Taking advantage of the RBI's different accounting year, the Centre had started demanding an interim dividend till the time the latter's final balance sheet is prepared (usually in August). To address this anomaly, an expert committee led by former RBI governor Bimal Jalan had recommended aligning the RBI's financial year with that of the government.
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Despite admitting to price pressures both from food items and input prices, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday hoped that a normal Southwest monsoon will have a "soothing impact" on inflation pressures and ruled out any wide variations in medium-term inflation forecast from what was given in April. In an unscheduled address earlier in the day amidst the raging pandemic, Das said the overall outlook for the economy is highly uncertain and is clouded with downside risks. He offered a slew of relief and liquidity measures to individuals and small businesses apart from a Rs 50,000 crore special liquidity window to the healthcare sector.
The speed at which he led the central bank in different areas -- ranging from internal reorganisation to inflation fighting, stabilising the currency, taking on rogue corporations, cleaning up bank balance sheets, and opening the sector -- makes one believe that Rajan knew he had only three years to do his job. A fascinating excerpt from Tamal Bandyopadhyay's MUST-READ Roller Coaster: An Affair with Banking.
Seeking to dispel possible notions of the RBI not having done enough by opting for a pause for the second consecutive time, Das said the RBI has a wide dashboard of instruments beyond rates that can be deployed.
'We have delivered a bitter medicine. It will take time to work.'
HDFC Bank was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding over 3.5 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, L&T, HDFC, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC and Kotak Bank.
To a specific question on the change in RBI's stance from "neutral" to "accommodative", Das said it means that there will not be any rate hike from here on.
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The increase reflects a quarter-on-quarter increase of 2.6 per cent in October-December 2022-23. In absolute terms, the total liabilities, including liabilities under the 'Public Account' of the government, jumped to Rs 1,50,95,970.8 crore at the end of December 2022.
India's economy will do well once vaccination reaches a critical mass as pent up demand, global recovery and easy financial conditions will boost activities, RBI's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Ashima Goyal said on Tuesday.
'We get to know secrets such as some of India's top-rated firms do not always make payments when due and many State-owned, listed, enterprises that borrow in bond markets default regularly.' 'Without naming the bank, he says that ever-greening of poor loans by a part of India's shadow banking lay at the doorstep of India's banking, notably 'one private bank'.' Viral Acharya's Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India won't be music to many ears, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The earlier high was in January this year at 5.07 per cent.
Currently, banks follow system of internal benchmarks, including Prime Lending Rate, Benchmark Prime Lending Rate, Base rate and Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate.
Achieving inflation target of 4 per cent, recovery after remonetisation and hardening profile of oil prices are some of the risks which the RBI is watching closely, says Gaurav Kapur.
Armed with necessary macro and micro growth drivers, India is on its way to becoming the fastest growing major economy in the world, a finance ministry report said. Rapid vaccination and teeming festivities will push India's ongoing recovery resulting in narrowing of demand-supply mismatches and greater employment opportunities, as per the monthly Economic Review prepared by the ministry.
According to Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic advisor of the State Bank of India group, a 50 bps rate cut is a possibility, but 25 bps is more likely.
Instead of a rate hike, or even a pause, there could be a window for the RBI for an interest rate cut
'If rate cuts happen, bond yields will come down and investors will make mark-to-market capital gains on them.'
Bond markets, global as well as domestic, are likely headed towards hard times over the next three to six months, as higher vegetable prices, rising fuel costs, and improved wages may keep inflation hot, believe analysts, who expect the yields to hit 7.5 per cent in the near-term from the current 7.234 per cent. In this backdrop, they suggest investors can put in money in funds/instruments with residual maturity of 4 to 6 years, while longer-term investors can allocate cautiously to the longer end in the range beyond 7 years.
To cut interest rates, the central bank head has to open up a debate on inflation target revision.
'Rate cut should reiterate RBI's commitment in providing confidence to consumers and small business.'
However, predictions that economic conditions will normalise after the elections underpinned optimism regarding the outlook and supported a stronger upturn in employment.
He will be the first bureaucrat to head the central bank in almost five years.
SBI was the biggest loser in the Sensex pack, shedding 2.40 per cent, followed by Yes Bank, Bharti Airtel, L&T, Sun Pharma, M&M, ICICI Bank, ONGC, RIL, Asian Paints, Vedanta and HUL, which lost up to 2.37 per cent.
The main reason was that CPI inflation would likely remain below 4 per cent till July.
Data suggests that households too are expecting inflation to subside, with the three-month-ahead and the one-year-ahead expectations declining by 40 basis points, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
Linking all new floating rate loans to an external benchmark won't impact existing borrowers, so customers who have taken long-term home loans recently should watch things carefully, say Joydeep Ghosh and Sanjay Kumar Singh.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew by 1.4 per cent in November as most components like manufacturing, electricity, mining, primary goods, and consumer durables witnessed a slowdown, according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday. This is on the base of a decline of 1.7 per cent in November 2020 and before the new Covid variant started impacting economic activity. IIP growth was lower than the 4 per cent expansion recorded in the previous month but was better than a 1.6 per cent contraction seen in November 2020. Separately, rising prices of kitchen staples pushed retail inflation, or rate of price increase, to 5.59 per cent in December 2021, bringing it close to the upper band of Reserve Bank's comfort zone.
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In the Sensex pack, M&M was the biggest loser, tumbling by 6.66 per cent, followed by TCS dropping 4.14 per cent.
India's services sector growth eased to a three-month low in June but service providers continued to signal positive demand trends, which resulted in a stronger increase in new business volumes and further job creation, a monthly survey said on Wednesday. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Services PMI Business Activity Index fell from 61.2 in May to 58.5 in June. Despite falling from May, the latest figure was consistent with a sharp pace of growth.
M V Subramanian says there is an imperative need for collective responsibility to tackle inflation, prices and availability of essential commodities, and not rely on inflation targeting alone.
Retail inflation softened to 6.71 per cent in July due to moderation in food prices but remained above the Reserve Bank's comfort level of 6 per cent for the seventh consecutive month. With retail inflation continuing to remain high despite a fall in prices of vegetables and edible oils, among other commodities in July, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might go for another rate hike in September. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was at 7.01 per cent in June and 5.59 per cent in July 2021. It was above 7 per cent from April to June this fiscal.
Rajan tells RBI colleagues he will be returning to academics
The banking sector is set to move at a fast pace from hereon.
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