A day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) opted for status quo in its monetary policy, state-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) hiked its benchmark lending rate by 0.1% or 10 basis points, making loans slightly more expensive.
The bank has raised the marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) by 0.1% to 8.40% for 1-year tenure, BoB said in a statement.
Similar cut has been made effective in other tenures, it said. The revised MCLR benchmarks are effective April 7, it added. The hike will push interest rates on home and other loans linked to one-year MCLR by 10 basis points.
In its first bi-monthly policy review of 2018-19, the RBI on Thursday kept the key interest rate unchanged but cut the inflation forecast on lower food prices, sparking a rally in stocks and bond markets.
The Monetary Policy Committee, headed by RBI Governor Urjit Patel, made an upward revision in its forecast of real GDP growth from 7.2% to 7.4%, which the ministry said is “broadly in line with the forecast in the Economic Survey“.
It further said, “inflation in the fourth quarter of 2017-18 has been revised downwards from 5.1% to 4.5%.