Smile index

H R Khan, deputy governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has this habit of smiling at the audience a lot. This would not matter in the ordinary course but, according to C V R Rajendran, executive director, Bank of Maharashtra, a banker’s smile can be misleading. Bankers do not smile, it is their code of conduct, he joked, so when RBI top officials smiled after the monetary policy review, it is taken to indicate a repo rate cut. That is how Khan’s smile created some confusion during a monetary policy review. Bank of Maharashtra’s treasury officials took a long position in the gilts market expecting a repo rate cut and the bank’s balance sheet became lighter. But there has been no repo rate cut by the RBI since April 2012.