SBI to review interest rates soon

[sajiv]

New Delhi: The country's largest lender, State Bank of India, today said that it would review interest rates soon following monetary measures taken by the Reserve Bank of India last week.
"We are going to review rates," State Bank of India Chairman O P Bhatt told reporters here.

The RBI had reduced repo and reverse repo rates by 100 basis points each to 6.5 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, effective from Monday.

Soon after RBI's decision, three banks namely Yes Bank, HDFC Bank and Union Bank reduced the benchmark prime lending rate by 50 basis point each.

SBI had last month slashed benchmark prime lending rate by 75 basis points to 13 per cent.

Commenting on the economic package, ahead of Indian Bank Association meeting, Bhatt said, "There are lot of things happening to stimulate demand in economy. Still there is a feeling that more is required".

This meeting assumes importance pursuant to the fiscal stimulus package announced last Sunday mentioning that banks would work out a package for housing loans below Rs 20 lakh.

The government on Sunday slashed excise duty by four percentage points across the board to boost demand and announced Rs 20,000-crore additional non-plan expenditure as part of the package to stimulate the economy, hit hard by the global financial crisis.

The package focuses on the power, exports, housing, auto, small and medium industries and infrastructure sectors through additional funding.

[sajiv]

SBI local board members named

HYDERABAD: Chinta Venkata Krishna of Hyderabad and Koteswara Rao Jaldu of Visakhapatnam have been nominated members of the Hyderabad local board of the State Bank of India for a period of three years, with effect from November 27.