RBI may pause interest rate hike in upcoming policy meet: SBI Research

28 Mar 2023 Evaluate

SBI Research in its latest Ecowrap report has said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is likely to pause their interest rate hike and the current 6.5 per cent repo rate could be the terminal rate for now. The repo rate is the interest rate at which the RBI lends money to all commercial banks. The next monetary policy meeting is scheduled for the first week of April 2023. Raising interest rates is a monetary policy instrument that typically helps suppress demand in the economy, thereby helping the inflation rate decline. In early 2020 when Covid hit the world, the repo rate was 4 per cent.

The report asserted that the RBI has enough reasons to pause the repo rate hike in the April meeting. It said ‘There are concerns of a material slowdown in the affordable housing loan market and financial stability concerns taking centre stage. While concerns on sticky core inflation is justified, it may be noted that average core inflation is at 5.8 per cent over the last decade and it is almost unlikely that core inflation could decline materially to 5.5 per cent and below as post-pandemic shifts in expenditure on health and education and the sticky component of transport inflation with fuel prices staying at elevated levels will act as the constraint. By this logic, RBI may then have to go for more rounds of rate hikes’.

On India's inflation, the Ecowrap report forecast March and April to be 5.5-5.6 per cent and 4.7-4.8 per cent. It said ‘Thus, the RBI will have a delicate balancing job of either looking forward to the June meeting with clear signs of inflation trending downwards or looking backwards at the Jan and Feb prints in April policy. Thus, it will be a delicate choice (for RBI)’. Not just India, US monetary policy committee too is on an interest hike spree in the fight against inflation. SBI Research said ‘Fed rate hikes could be smaller in magnitude, and one last in May policy of 25 bps’. It added ‘The challenge is now to decouple from Fed. But the good thing is that a dovish Fed means soft dollar and thus lower depreciation risk for the Indian rupee in the short to medium term’.

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