The governor of RBI Shaktikanta Das announced a list of measures to facilitate bank credits, manage the functionality of the market, enable liquidity, and ease the economic stress caused by the coronavirus pandemic, as of today.
As for the emergency measures, RBI will put lakhs of crores of rupees into the system, giving it to the financial institutions and will allow easier borrowing, letting states get more money. Further, RBI cut the reverse repo rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%, while keeping the repo rate unchanged, discouraging GOVERNOR banks from parking more money with the central bank. To provide liquidity to banks, Reserve bank also reduced the LCR(Liquidity Coverage Ratio) requirement of banks to 80% from 100%. Last month, while Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared a mega economic relief package worth about Rs. 1.7 lakh crore, the RBI cut the repo rate by a colossal 75 basis points.
Today, 17th April 2020 at GOVERNOR 14:40 IST, RBI declared measures pertinent actions ‘to begin with’. Navneet Munot, ED and CIO of SBI Mutual Fund said that “Unusual times need an unusual response and the GOVERNOR governor has adequately come forward to impress their cognizance of the current and future probable pain points in the financial system. They have reiterated to do ‘whatever it takes’ to support the financial system and economy in general. These measures were some pertinent actions ‘to begin with’.”
The same day, at 14:29 IST, RBI also took a stand to take more measures in order to provide solace to economy GOVERNOR and markets. “The much-needed liquidity support to the struggling NBFC/HFC /MFI sector in the form of TLTRO 2 and refinancing through NABARD, NHB and SIDBI would aid to ease the incumbent GOVERNOR funding and liquidity issues in the sector. The further deduction of reverse repo rate by 25 bps to 3.75% would push the lending by banks to productive channels of the economy. RBI stands ready to take further measures as and when required, which indeed provides further solace to markets and the economy” stated Jyoti Vaswani, CIO of Future Generali India Life Insurance.
