Hyderabad: In the recent monetary policy meet, RBI has cut the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.75 per cent. Responding to this rate cut Indian Bank has decided to transfer interest rate benefit to consumers.
Talking to ETV Bharat Indian Bank MD and CEO Padmaja Chunduru said, “We decreased interest rate by 10 basis points last time when RBI had reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points. This time also we will change interest rates according to the central bank decision.”
On June 6, RBI has decreased the repo rate by 25 basis point from 6.0 per cent to 5.75 per cent. Repo rate is the rate at which RBI lends money to the banks.
Banks always face criticism of not transferring Repo rate benefits to consumers. Responding to this Padmaja said, “Beside Repo rate, deposit rates form a major part of MCLR. Deposit rates are not coming down. Every bank will respond according to their deposit rates.”
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She further commented on RBI's waving off NEFT, RTGS charges to push digital payments by saying “RBI side charges waiving portion will be transferred to consumers but bank side charges will continue. Digital payments are getting cheaper and growing at a fast pace.”
According to RBI's report 6,800 fraud cases worth Rs 75,000 crores have been reported in 2018-19 against 5,916 cases worth Rs. 41,167 crores in 2017-18. Explaining this, she said, “Part of this amount is pertaining to old credit cases. After the NPA issue government has also asked for forensic auditing. If there is suspected diversion of funds then they declared it as a fraud. This is a new guideline. So some of the old accounts are also declared as frauds. All frauds did not happen this year. ATM frauds, Cyber frauds are there but they form minor part.”
Explaining the creation of big banks in India Padmaja said: “Large banks are necessary. Now we have SBI which is one of the world's largest banks. Top 6 banks in the world are Chinese. Those banks muscle and heft in international banks are not there for our banks. But only big banks are not good for the economy.”
