Srei hikes benchmark lending rate by 1%

The Srei infrastructure financing group companies, Srei Infrastructure Finance and Srei Equipment Finance today announced a hike in their benchmark rate by 1 per cent with immediate effect.

Srei group companies raised benchmark rates from 15 per cent to 16 per cent.

"This increase has been necessitated due to successive increase in the interest rates by the banks in the past few months," Srei Infrastructure Finance Chairman and Managing Director Hemant Kanoria said.

"We usually do not react immediately as it may be detrimental to the interests of our clients. We now clearly see a rising interest rate trend, therefore this hike," he added.

He said that the company's Asset Liability Management Committee met here on October 05, 2010 and after reviewing the current market trend of increasing interest rates to contain inflation, decided to increase its benchmark rate in line with the upward moving interest rates in the domestic market.