Bank of Maharashtra lowers lending rates

A day after the Reserve Bank reduced the benchmark repo rate by 25 basis points for the second consecutive time, state-run Bank of Maharashtra Friday announced a nominal 5 bps reduction in its lending rates across various tenors. In a 4:2 majority vote, the central bank had cut the repo rate to 6 percent from 6.25 citing the need to support growth that has lost momentum of late in the first bi-monthly monetary policy announced on Thursday. The central bank also lowered its GDP forecast for FY20 to 7.2 from 7.4 percent projected in the February review while also lowered its inflation forecast to 2.9 to 3.8 percent for the year. The Pune-based BoM reduced its one-year marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) to which most of the bank lending rates are linked, to 8.70 percent from 8.75. The six- month, three-month and one-month MCLR have also been revised downwards to 8.50, 8.45 and 8.25 percent, respectively.