Faced with liquidity comfort, major lenders, including the ICICI and the HDFC Bank, on Thursday lowered the fixed deposit (FD) rates by up to 0.25 per cent in view of the surge in deposits following the demonetisation.
The lowering of the rates may herald a reduction in the lending rate as well in the next few days.
For FDs between 390 days to 2 years, the bank has lowered the interest rate by 0.15 per cent effective Wednesday, the ICICI Bank website showed.
ICICI Bank will pay 7.10 per cent as against 7.25 per cent earlier.
HDFC Bank has reduced the interest rate by 0.25 per cent across all tenures on bulk deposits ranging between Rs 1 and 5 crore.The new rates are effective Thursday, as per the HDFC Bank website.
With the revised interest rates, the one-year FD will attract an interest rate of 6.75 per cent, against the 7 per cent earlier.
For fixed deposits between ‘3 years 1 day-5 years’, the rate has been lowered to 6.5 per cent from 6.75 per cent.
On Wednesday, the country’s largest lender, SBI, slashed FD rates on select maturities by up to 0.15 per cent.
Private lender Axis Bank has cut marginal cost of fund-based lending rate (MCLR) by 0.15-0.20 per cent.
Till Wednesday, SBI collected Rs. 1,14,139 crore in deposits over the last seven days after the government announced scrapping Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes.
According to estimates, banks have collected cash deposits of over Rs. 4 lakh crore following the demonetisation.
