Ahead of the monetary policy review, the Reserve Bank of India’s Governor Shaktikanta Das met the heads of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) and conveyed the regulator’s expectations pertaining to the banking sector.
The central bank is planning to announce its sixth bi-monthly monetary policy for 2018-19 on February 7. This would be the first monetary review under the new RBI Governor.
“Basically the idea was convey to them the regulator’s expectation from the banking sector in general and public sector banks in particular, and also to get from them their understanding of the current banking situation, and to get an understanding about the future outlook, the sense they have,” said Das after meeting the Chief Executive Officers of the State-run banks.
Industry experts believe that RBI would most likely reduce interest rate in its upcoming review meeting. The official figures of inflation reveal that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) reported an 18-month low performance at 2.19 percent in December as compared to 2.33 percent in November and 5.21 per cent in December 2017.
The Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation declined to an eight-month low of 3.80 percent in December as against 4.64 percent in November and 3.58 per cent in December 2017.
