RBI keeps interest rates on hold. 10 things you need to know

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday kept the benchmark repo rate unchanged, even as it lowered its forecast for consumer price inflation and retained India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth target at 9.5%.

Here are 10 important things that the central bank said in its latest bi-monthly monetary policy.

1) The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has kept the repo rate at 4%, for the eighth straight time. The reverse repo rate will continue to be at 3.35%.

2) The MPC has maintained an “accommodative” stance as far as its outlook goes.

3) Since March 2020, the month India went into a nationwide lockdown to control the spread of Covid-19, the repo rate has been brought down by 115 basis points. Since 2019, the rate is down 135 basis points. 

4) Food inflation is likely to remain muted, the central bank’s governor Shaktikanta Das said.

5) Real GDP growth for the first quarter of FY2022-23 is pegged at 17.2%.

6) RBI retained gross domestic product (GDP) growth target at 9.5% for FY2021-22.

7) RBI lowered CPI inflation projections to 5.3% for this fiscal year from the earlier estimate of 5.7%.

8) The RBI wants a framework for retail digital payments in offline mode to be instituted. It also wants a framework on geotagging technology on all payment infrastructure, existing or new.

9) RBI said a new internal Ombudsman Scheme for addressing grievances of customers of non-banking finance companies will be set up.

10) Transaction limit for Immediate Payments Service (IMPS) has been hiked to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh.