Bank of Baroda ups lending rate by 75 bps

Home, auto and personal loan borrowers will have to shell out more in their EMIs as three more banks, including the second largest state-run lender Bank of Baroda, increased their lending rates by 75 basis points.

The RBI Governor had said after the policy announcement on Tuesday that bankers had told him that they would  increase their lending rates following the 50 bps repo hike.

Bank of Baroda became the third bank today to increase its base and lending rates by 50 basis points each to 10.75% and 15% respectively, effective August 1, the bank informed the exchanges.

The bank also revised the rates on some term deposits below Rs 1 crore and on term deposits of Rs 1 crore by a similar amount. The new rate will be applicable from August 1.

Earlier in the day, two other public sector lenders, Central Bank of India and IDBI Bank, too had hiked their interest rates by 75 bps in their base rates.

While the Mumbai-based Central Bank of India effected a steep 75 bps hike in its base and lending rates to 10.75 and 15% percent respectively, IDBI Bank also hiked its base rate and lending rates by 75 bps each to 10.75% and 15.25%.

Yesterday, the Bangalore-based Canara Bank (50 bps)and the Mumbai-based Bank of India (75 bps) too had upped their base rates.

Other lenders which had acted on cue from RBI include the Bangalore-headquartered private sector lender ING Vysya and the Maharashtra-based private lender Ratnakar Bank. 

This leaves the industry leaders like SBI, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank still to follow the cues from the central bank.

Both Central Bank and IDBI Bank attributed the steep hikes as response to the 50 bps hike the RBI effected in the first quarter monetary policy announced on July 26 to fight inflation, and also to the fact that these banks did not pass on the 25 bps increase that RBI effected in mid-June review.

The hikes have been done "keeping in view the measures announced by RBI, inflation and liquidity scenario," an IDBI statement said.

Both IDBI and Central Bank of India said the hikes are effective August 1.

On July 26, RBI had increased its short-term lending and borrowing rates by a higher-than-expected 50 bps to 8% and 7% respectively, saying inflation is the biggest threat to the economy and not a moderation in growth numbers.

The very same day private sector Yes Bank had raised its rates by 50 bps.

The Central Bank, which declared a 17% drop in Q1 results to Rs 281 crore today on higher provisioning, increased its lending lending rate by 50 bps to 15%.

On the deposit rates side, Central Bank upped it by 40 basis points in a short term bucket, leaving the rest unchanged. IDBI Bank increased deposit rates by 25 to 150 bps in different maturity buckets.