Repo Rate: 68,625 crore burden on MSME and retail customers due to increase in repo rate by 2.25%

An SBI report states that 47 percent of the total borrowers in the country are linked to the loan external benchmark (EBR). This simply means that with the increase in the rate of RBI, their interest itself increases. According to the report, the increase in the repo rate to 2.25 percent five times will cost retail and MSME customers Rs 68,625 crore. An increase of one bps leads to a cost increase of Rs 305 crore. In this, there is a burden of Rs 65 crore on the retail customer and Rs 240 crore on the MSME.

The report released on Wednesday said that there will be no reduction in the liquidity of the system due to the increase in the repo rate. There is ample liquidity at the moment. On the other hand, the Bank of Baroda said in a report that, still in February, RBI can increase by 0.25 percent. However, if the conditions are right then the process of increasing the rates may stop. After the rate hike in some BRICS countries, inflation has come under their control and a similar situation is visible in India too with five decisions of RBI.

Another hike in repo rate likely in February: Analysts

Analysts and economists believe that there may be another increase in the repo rate. It will increase to around 6.5-6.75 percent. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Chief Economic Advisor, SBI Group, said there could be another 0.25 percent hike in the policy rate in February. HDFC Bank Chief Economist Abheek Baruah said the latest policy announcement indicates that rates may go up further. We expect it to stop at 6.5-6.75 percent. We may see another hike of 0.25% in the February policy review, said Tanvi Gupta Jain, an economist at UBS India. Even if the core inflation comes down in the future.

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