New Delhi: The country's largest private sector bank ICICI on Thursday slashed its benchmark lending rate by 0.35 percentage point to 9.35 per cent, making its home and auto loans cheaper for borrowers. The revised rate will be 9.35 per cent as against existing 9.70 per cent effective October 5, ICICI Bank said in a statement.
With effect from July 1, 2010, interest rates on new loans and advances, including consumer loans, are determined with reference to Base Rate or the minimum lending rate, it said. The bank has reduced interest rates on some bulk deposits of above Rs 1 crore by up to 0.25 per cent. With the reduction, all loans linked to the base rate would be cheaper by at least 0.35 per cent.
After SBI, the base rate of ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank is the lowest at 9.35 per cent. Soon after RBI's rate easing on September 29, the country's largest lender SBI slashed its base rate by 0.40 per cent to 9.30 per cent. RBI in its fourth bi-monthly monetary policy review reduced benchmark repo rate from 7.25 per cent to 6.75 per cent, the lowest in four-and-half-years.
Following this, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had expressed hope that banks will transmit the benefit to borrowers so as to boost investments and the economy. "We are looking forward now to the transmission of these cuts which will effectively help to boost confidence and investment. They will also help to realize the economy's medium term potential growth rate," Jaitley had said.
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