As predicted by our analyst Rahul Sonthalia (click here to read) and myself (click here to read) in our earlier articles, RBI has raised the policy rates almost a month before the scheduled 1st quarterly review of monetary policy due at the end of July.

In an after market hour announcement today, RBI raised the repo and reverse repo rate by 25 bps each to 5.50% and 4% respectively (click here to read about repo and reverse repo rates).

Inflation

Anticipation of a rate hike got all the more eminent after the decision to raise the fuel prices and freeing up the price of petrol last week. The move was expected to raise the WPI inflation by about 90 bps. For the month of May, WPI was at 10.16%, above the 10% mark. Though food inflation has been easing, other major indices, fuel index and manufactured products inflation has been rising. RBI in the release noted “There has been some moderation in food price inflation, but the price index of food articles continues to increase. More importantly, the prices of non-food manufactured goods and fuel items have accelerated in recent months”.

Money markets

As compared to earlier rate hikes, this rate hike assumes all the more importance as money markets are facing liquidity crunch. Volumes at repo window have been high during the week, averaging about Rs 60,000 cr for the week. Call rates are also high. This would increase the cost of borrowing of the banks. As for liquidity, RBI has extended the time limit for additional liquidity support and second LAF window till July 16 to ease the liquidity conditions.

Rates of banks

However, it is expected that it would still not lead to an immediate rate hike by the banks as base rate mechanism of pricing loans is being implemented from July 1. Impact of the same on corporate borrowing will be determined only after some time. Thus as of now, corporate borrowing may not get affected.

Market reaction

Since this announcement was done after the close of all the markets, there has been no reaction of the markets. However equity markets have been in negative for most part of the week and still indices are expected to open weak on Monday. Yields on bonds increased after the fuel price announcement last week but the same retraced back most of the gains during the current week. But for the next week again, yields are expected to open strong on Monday.

Author:Praveen Bajaj

Related posts:

  1. RBI Raises Repo, Reverse Repo Rates
  2. RBI likely to raise rates in todays monetary policy review
  3. Rates raised at RBI’s first mid-quarter review