HDFC Bank raises retail lending rate by 50 bps

Housing Development Finance Corp Bank, India's top mortgage lender, said it would raise its retail prime lending rate on housing loans by 50 basis points with effect from Monday.

"This is in line with the increase in interest rates in the economy, which have hardened mainly due to high inflation," the company said in a statement.

The country's leading lenders, State Bank of India and ICICI Bank, have raised their benchmark lending rate, or base rate, by 75 basis points and 50 basis points respectively this month.

The Reserve Bank of India this month raised the repo and reverse repo rate by a larger-than-expected 50 basis points to battle stubbornly high inflation.