India Raise Rates from 8.25% to 10.25% in response to Record Low Rupee

India stepped up efforts to help the rupee after its plunge to a record low, raising two interest rates in a move that escalates a tightening in liquidity across most of the biggest emerging markets.

The Reserve Bank of India increased the marginal standing facility and the bank rate to 10.25 percent from 8.25 percent, it said in a statement on its website late yesterday. The monetary authority said it will conduct open market sales of government bonds worth 120 billion rupees ($2 billion) on June 18, a step that would drain cash from the economy.

“The importance of this move is that it signals that the RBI is willing to act and make it much more costly to short the rupee,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts Jahangir Aziz and Sajjid Chinoy said in a note. “These measures are only preconditions to the RBI squeezing rupee liquidity to engineer much higher short-term interest rates.”

India’s move yesterday leaves Russia as the only BRIC economy to not have reined in funds in its financial system, after Brazil raised benchmark rates three times this year and a cash squeeze in China sent interbank borrowing costs soaring to records last month. RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao kept the repurchase rate, the policy benchmark, at 7.25 percent in June as the rupee’s drop stoked price pressures, snapping a run of three cuts to fight the weakest growth in a decade.

Bloomberg

This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all. You could lose all of your deposited funds.

Mingze Wu

Mingze Wu

Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Based in Singapore, Mingze Wu focuses on trading strategies and technical and fundamental analysis of major currency pairs. He has extensive trading experience across different asset classes and is well-versed in global market fundamentals. In addition to contributing articles to MarketPulseFX, Mingze centers on forex and macro-economic trends impacting the Asia Pacific region.
Mingze Wu