SBI to review lending rates after Budget

The country's largest commercial bank State Bank of India (SBI) today said it will review lending rates only after the Union budget.

"We will wait till the budget to review lending rates," managing director T S Bhattacharya said. SBI chairman A K Purwar had recently stated that the bank would take a decision on lending rates 'very shortly' since there was a pressure on liquidity.

"There is a definite pressure on liquidity. We are closely looking at the loan rates, including home loan rates and will take a decision very shortly," Purwar had said when asked whether the bank was considering to increase the lending rates.

Reserve Bank of India, in its quarterly review of the annual policy in January, increased repo rates following which banks had started revising lending rates.

Led by HDFC Bank, a number of banks had revised their retail lending rates, particularly home loans. While HDFc increased home loan rates by 0.5 per cent across the board, IDBI increased loan rates by 25 basis points. ICICI Bank also increased its home loan rates by 50 basis points.