Do you have an EMI? RBI rate hike to make your borrowings more expensive

The RBI raised interest rates to the highest in 2 years to tackle inflationary pressures

Planning to take a loan? You should not wait any longer. EMIs (equated monthly installments) on home, personal, auto and other loans are set to get costlier as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) increased the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 per cent from the previous rate of 6.25 per cent.

The RBI has also raised the reverse repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent. The decision was taken during the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) bi-monthly meeting on Wednesday.

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In its last monetary policy meeting on June 6, the RBI had already increased the repo rate by 25 bps (basis points). Headed by governor Urjit Patel, the central bank raised key policy rates to the highest in two years for the second time in a row in last two months to tackle inflationary pressures.

Over the last two bi-monthly MPC review meetings; there has been a total of 50 bps increase in the repo rate. The second-consecutive increase in repo rate comes as a shocker for those who are already paying EMIS, taken loans from banks or are planning to borrow in future.

ARTICLE SOURCE : BS 

RBI monetary policy: Repo rate kept unchanged at 6%

Statutory liquidity ratio reduced by 50 basis points to 19.5%

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), headed by Governor Urjit Patel, on Wednesday kept the repo rate – the key policy rate at which the RBI lends money to banks – unchanged at six per cent, in a decision that was broadly in line with expectations.

The RBI reduced the gross value added (GVA) growth target for the current financial year to 6.7 per cent from 7.3 per cent earlier.(economy news)

 In its fourth bimonthly review of the monetary policy, the RBI, however, lowered the statutory liquidity ratio – the reserve requirement that commercial banks need to maintain in the form of gold or government-approved securities before providing credit to customers – by 50 basis points to 19.5 per cent, with effect from October 14 fortnight. The MPC voted 5-1 in favour of the status quo on both repo rate and reverse repo rate -- the latter was kept unchanged at 5.75 per cent.In the one year since the setting up of the MPC in October 2016, it has lowered the repo rate twice – by 25 basis points each in October 2016 and August 2017.

Most analysts had been expecting the central bank to maintain the status quo this time, but effect a rate cut later in the financial year. Some have even been saying that the rate-cut cycle, which started on January 15, 2015 with a rate reduction to 7.75 per cent from 8 per cent, might have reached its end.