Interest rates in India have almost peaked in India, the country’s largest bank and top lender State Bank of India (SBI) said on Wednesday.
“They have almost peaked,” SBI chairman and managing director O.P. Bhatt said. The SBI has raised its benchmark prime lending rate by one percentage point to 13.75 per cent on Tuesday.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched an all-round monetary attack on inflation that has breached the 12 per cent mark in the last reported week.
Finance minister P.Chidambaram said that raising of interest rates by banks would not affect existing home loans of up to Rs 30 lakhs.
Bhatt said softening international crude oil prices, a good monsoon and lower prices of many commodities were pointers towards a peak in interest rates.
“The demand pull from Beijing Olympics is also over, the global economy is slowing down. So there seems enough reason that it has peaked or near peaked unless there is any further cause for action by external factors or by the RBI,” he said.