Big businesses may take longer to get benefit of rate cut

The recent policy rate cut by India's central bank should turn out to be good news for individuals and small businesses.

- Shayan Ghosh

The recent policy rate cut by India's central bank should turn out to be good news for individuals and small businesses. However, large corporates hoping for relief on interest payments will have to hold the bubbly as banks dither on cutting lending rates for such borrowers, and wait for key internal committees to take a call.

The development comes on the back of the first repo rate cut this month by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in five years—of 25 basis points (bps)—and the central government's reported hawk-eye on banks to follow suit on their own lending rates. (One bps is one-hundredth of a percentage point.)

One big reason for the hesitation to cut deposit rates (a precursor to a lending rate cut) is the potential outflow of money at a time credit growth is expected to pick up. "There is a challenge for banks because the repo rate cut of 25 bps will anyway hit net interest margin (NIM) and net interest income (NII)," said Ashok Chandra, chief executive of Punjab National Bank (PNB).

To be sure, estimates by Fitch suggest that Indian banks' NIM will fall by about 10 bps on average in the financial year ending March 2026 following the 25-bps repo rate cut on 7 February, and the additional 25-bps cut that it expects in FY26.