Click Here to Know the Latest CRR Rates  SLR Rate, Bank Rate, Repo and Reverse Repo Rates for Banks in India - Know About These  Banking Terms

What is Bank rate?   Bank Rate is the rate at which central bank of the country  (in India it is RBI)  allows finance to commercial banks. Bank Rate is a tool, which central bank  uses for short-term purposes. Any upward revision in Bank Rate by central bank is an indication that banks should also increase deposit rates as well as Base Rate / Benchmark Prime Lending Rate.  Thus any revision in the Bank rate indicates that it is likely that interest rates on your deposits are likely to either go up or go down,  and it can also indicate  an increase or decrease in your EMI.

[Remember Bank Rate is not the same thing as Deposit Rates offered by banks for fixed deposits and recurring deposits. 

If you are a non banker and have landed on this page while looking at Deposit Rates, please click here to go to correct page

i.e. Best Deposit Rates offered by banks for fixed deposits]

What is CRR?    The Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Bill, 2006 has been enacted and has come into force with its gazette notification. Consequent upon amendment to sub-Section 42(1), the Reserve Bank, having regard to the needs of securing the monetary stability in the country, RBI can prescribe Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) for scheduled banks without any floor rate or ceiling rate.  [Before the enactment of this amendment, in terms of Section 42(1) of the RBI Act, the Reserve Bank could prescribe CRR for scheduled banks between 3 per cent and 20 per cent of total of their demand and time liabilities].

RBI uses CRR either to drain excess liquidity or to release funds needed for the growth of the economy from time to time. Increase in CRR means that banks have less funds available and money is sucked out of circulation. Thus we can say that this serves duel purposes i.e.(a)  ensures that a portion of bank deposits is kept with RBI and is totally risk-free, (b) enables RBI to  control liquidity in the system, and thereby, inflation by tying the  hands of the banks in lending money.

What is SLR?   Every bank is required to maintain at the close of business every day, a minimum proportion of their Net Demand and Time Liabilities as liquid assets in the form of cash, gold and un-encumbered approved securities. The ratio of liquid assets to demand and time liabilities is known as Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR).  RBI is empowered to increase this ratio up to 40%.  An increase in SLR  also restrict the bank’s leverage position to pump more money into the economy.

What are Repo rate and Reverse Repo rate?

Repo (Repurchase) rate is the rate at which the RBI lends shot-term money to the banks against securities. When the repo rate increases borrowing from RBI becomes more expensive.  Therefore, we can say that in case,  RBI wants to make it more expensive for the banks to borrow money, it increases the repo rate; similarly, if it wants to make it cheaper for banks to borrow money, it reduces the repo rate

Reverse Repo rate is the rate at which banks park their short-term excess liquidity with the RBI.  The banks use this tool when they feel that they are stuck with excess funds and are not able to invest anywhere for reasonable returns.     An increase in the reverse repo rate  means that the RBI is ready to borrow money from the banks at a higher rate  of interest. As a result, banks would prefer to keep more and more surplus funds with RBI.

Thus, we can conclude that Repo Rate signifies the rate at which liquidity is injected in the banking system by RBI, whereas Reverse repo rate signifies the rate at which the central bank absorbs liquidity from the banks

The policy announcements on 03/05/2011, indicates that now repo rate has become the only independent variable policy rate, marking a shift from earlier method of calibrating various policy rates separately. The reverse repo rate -- the rate at which RBI borrows – will be kept 100 basis points lower than the repo rate. MSF and Bank Rate too are marked up (as declared by RBI) above the Repo Rate.
 

Wants to Know More About The following - Then click on the relevant link:

WHAT IS SLR?  WHAT IS CRR? WHAT IS BANK RATE? WHAT IS REPO AND REVERSE REPO.click here

Chronology of Marginal Standing Facility / History of Marginal Standing Facility

• What is Commercial Paper in India - Define Commercial Paper.  Everything About CP

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