Indian government's decision to cut GST rates on various products will increase purchasing power of consumers and boost demand for residential properties in the upcoming festive season, according to realtors' body CREDAI. The association, which has a 13,000 members from across India, said the construction cost is expected to come down because of reduction in GST rates on cement and few other building materials.
The Reserve Bank of India on Friday decided to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 per cent but maintained an accommodative stance as the economy is yet to recover from the impact of the second Covid wave.
Some public sector banks, including State Bank of India (SBI), Union Bank of India, Canara Bank, and Bank of India, are increasing the spread on home loans for new customers to protect margins.
Markets will look for clear guidance on how the MPC interprets the uncertainty and what it implies for the future course of monetary policy, points out Rajeswari Sengupta.
Banking sector has witnessed healthy growth in advances in the third quarter of financial year 2026 (Q3FY26) against the same period last year, as the full impact of goods and service tax (GST) rate cuts drove growth. Most of the lenders saw their credit growth outpace the deposit growth in the quarter.
Stock markets closed higher on Friday after the Reserve Bank of India kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged as expected and proposed allowing banks to lend to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with certain prudential safeguards to deepen the financing pool for the real estate sector.
Banks have been borrowing heavily from the Tri-Party Repo (TREPS) market and deploying those funds into the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is offering higher interest rate than the former, leading to increased volumes in the SDF window. The weighted average TREPS rate was trading at 5.66 per cent on Monday, 9 basis points lower than the SDF rate which currently stands at 5.75 per cent.
British banking major RBS on Thursday said it expects the Reserve Bank to cut key rate by 25 basis points or 0.25 per cent in its monetary policy review next week, leaving the cash reserve ratio (CRR) unchanged.
Borrowers should consider switching from an MCLR-linked to a repo rate-linked loan.
Passenger vehicle sales in India reached a record high of 4.7 million units in FY26, boosted by strong performances from major automakers and the implementation of GST 2.0.
Hiring demand strongest in ecommerce, tech startups, healthcare, and energy sectors, with Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune leading.
The Reserve Bank is unlikely to cut the benchmark interest rate in its forthcoming bi-monthly monetary policy review later in the week as retail inflation is still a cause of concern, and there is a possibility of the Middle East crisis deteriorating further, impacting crude oil and commodity prices, say experts.
The interest rate on these schemes have remained unchanged for over a year now.
The July-September quarter GDP numbers are due on November 30.
The banking sector could see better loan growth in the third quarter of financial year 2026 (Q3FY26) with improved net interest margins (NIMs), though the full impact of latest rate cuts will be largely felt in the fourth quarter. There may be lower slippage in unsecured loans and microfinance institutions (MFIs) along with steady recovery trends, which should lower credit cost.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's call for making lending rates affordable may not resonate anytime soon as banks still struggle with margin compression, and await clues from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on liquidity and rate action. Hinting that any lending rate cut was some time away, State Bank of India (SBI) managing director Vinay M Tonse said there was still some aggression in the market regarding deposit pricing.
Banks are depending more heavily on the market for certificates of deposit (CDs), whose worth climbed to a record Rs 5.75 trillion in the fortnight to January 15, owing to deposit tightness in the system.
Realtors' apex body CREDAI described the RBI decision to cut repo rate by 50 basis points as a bold step and said this will help boost sales of residential properties.
Strong domestic growth will continue to draw foreign investment into the Indian economy, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra said on Tuesday. He said this was reflected in recent free trade agreements and investment commitments by large technology companies.
After effecting two back-to-back 25 basis points rate cuts, Reserve Bank Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Wednesday hinted at another reduction in key policy rate by changing the central bank's monetary stance to 'accomodative' from 'neutral', which may further lower EMIs for consumers.
Despite gross domestic product (GDP) growth being lower-than-expected for the July-September quarter, the six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may not cut the policy repo rate in the review meeting scheduled for next week due to high inflation in October, according to experts. "Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation breaching the upper limit of the RBI's tolerance band in October (6.2 per cent year-on-year) is not a favourable backdrop for the MPC to commence the easing cycle, even as the growth outcome disappointed the MPC's expectations," said Shreya Sodhani, regional economist at Barclays, who expects the policy repo rate to be kept unchanged in the December meeting.
The transmission of the February and April rate cuts is now complete, validating the central bank's monetary stance and contributing to a revival in credit growth, said Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Friday. "We now have preliminary figures for June credit rates, and we find that for new loans, the rates are lower by at least 50 basis points (bps)... within two months of our 50-bp cut, we are in June, and the whole of the monetary policy transmission has happened.
ICICI Bank has cut its savings account deposit interest rate by 0.25 per cent, according to the lender's website. The second largest private sector bank's move comes days after larger rival HDFC Bank announced similar move amid a spate of cuts in deposit offerings following RBI's two back-to-back rate decreases.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday lowered India's growth forecast for FY26 to 6.5 per cent from 6.7 per cent on account of trade uncertainty and higher US tariffs that are expected to impact exports and investment. Despite the downward revision from the April 2025 Asian Development Outlook (ADO), India remains one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world.
The first day of the year 2026 was positive for the debt market with foreign investors buying a net domestic debt of Rs 7,524 crore, the highest single-day inflow since May 29 last year.
Retail sales of vehicles across categories in India in 2025 grew by 7.71 per cent at 2,81,61,228 units as compared to 2,61,45,445 in 2024, with GST 2.0 helping overcome a subdued start to the year, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations said on Tuesday.
The RBI is likely to reduce the key interest rate by 25 basis points this week after keeping it on hold for two years, complementing the Union Budget initiatives to push consumption-led demand, though the sliding rupee continues to be a concern. As the retail inflation has remained within the Reserve Bank's comfort zone (less than 6 per cent) for most of the year, the central bank can take rate action to boost growth hit by sluggish consumption, opined experts.
Uncertainties over the impact of the United States' (US') tariffs on India, along with the ongoing transmission of past rate cuts, prompted the members of the Reserve Bank of India's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to maintain the status quo during the August meeting, the minutes showed. While some of the external members highlighted their concern over growth, the internal members cited the one-year headline inflation rate overshooting the 4 per cent target.
In a first, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced that it will conduct daily variable rate repo (VRR) auctions on all working days in Mumbai, until further notice. The daily auctions, aimed at easing the current liquidity tightness in the banking system, will begin on Friday, with a notified amount of Rs 50,000 crore.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is unlikely to cut the benchmark interest rate at its upcoming monetary policy review meeting, taking place soon after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election results, amid inflation challenges, said experts. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may also refrain from rate cut as economic growth is picking up, notwithstanding the elevated interest rate of 6.5 per cent (repo) prevailing since February 2023. The meeting of the Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das headed MPC is scheduled for June 5 to 7.
Passenger vehicle dispatches from companies to dealers raced to the highest ever sales mark in a calendar year in 2025 as a reduction in prices due to GST reforms led to robust sales in the festive season, industry body SIAM said on Tuesday.
India was being evaluated for a potential weight of around 1 per cent in the index, an allocation that could have translated into $25 billion of inflows, spread over roughly 10 months.
RBI will be cautious easing rates further given oil price uncertainties
The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday opted for a pause second time in a row, maintaining key benchmark policy rate at 6.5 per cent as inflation moderates. The rate increase cycle was paused in April after six consecutive rate hikes aggregating to 250 basis points since May 2022. Announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) unanimously decided to keep the rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent.
Among Sensex firms, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, Axis Bank and Infosys were among the major gainers. Bharti Airtel and Asian Paints emerged as the laggards from the pack.
'Given the lag in transmission, further softening of lending rates may happen in the coming months.'
Equity markets fell on Monday, with benchmark indices recording their worst session in over two months amid caution ahead of the US Federal Reserve's (Fed's) policy announcement and renewed uncertainty over the US-India trade deal. Sustained selling by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) also weighed on sentiment.
The forthcoming Budget could think of maintaining public capital expenditure at 3 per cent so that domestic resources are available for private investments, points out N R Bhanumurthy.
India's housing market has remained resilient this festival season (Dussehra-Diwali period), despite global macroeconomic challenges, tech-sector layoffs, and affordability pressures, with developers reporting 10-25 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) rise in home sales across major cities.
Overall economic activity continued to hold up in November with demand conditions remaining robust, thanks to strengthening urban demand, but manufacturing and rural demand showed some signs of deceleration even as services remained strong, according to an article on the State of the Economy written by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials in the central bank's December bulletin.
