Click to play videoNew Delhi: Country's largest public sector lender State Bank of India on Thursday said that it does not expect the interest rates to go up in the short term.
"I do not see them (interest rates) rising in the near future," State Bank of India Chairman O P Bhatt said.
The Finance Minister met the CEOs of Public Sector Banks after the credit policy. He emphasised banks to concentrate on debt swap according to the Government policy of June 18 2004.
The Reserve Bank of India while announcing Annual Credit Policy for 2008-09 had hiked the Cash Reserve Ratio (the percentage of deposits that commercial banks maintain with the Reserve Bank) by 25 basis points to 8.25 per cent.
Prior to this, the apex bank on April 17 had announced a hike in CRR by 50 basis points in two phases to contain inflationary expectations.
Bankers on Tuesday had dubbed as "sensible" the marginal increase in statutory deposits – CRR – announced by RBI, saying the system had good liquidity but most of them would wait to decide on hiking lending rates.
Bankers were also unanimous that RBI's policy was aimed at balancing growth and containing inflation and would not hurt the industry much.
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