How are banks' lending rates moving?

High inflation has forced the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to take explicit steps towards normalisation of the extraordinarily loose monetary conditions. But financial conditions have been hardening for some time now, with yields on government bonds at multi-year highs. Also on the up are lending rates of banks. On April 18, State Bank of India and Axis Bank increased their marginal cost of funds based lending rates (MCLR) by 10 basis points and 5 basis points, respectively. But even data until March shows MCLR rates had bottomed out and were rising – if not for public sector banks, but definitely for private and foreign banks.