India's largest lender SBI increases benchmark lending rate by 0.1%

Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has increased benchmark lending rate or base rate by 0.1 per cent, a move that may be followed by other lenders.

With the increase the revised base rate is 7.55 per cent, as per the information posted on SBI's website.

The new rate is effective from December 15, 2021, it said.

The decision is not going to affect those who have taken loan since January 2019 but those before that.

SBI has migrated to External Benchmark Lending Rate (EBLR) linked to repo rate since January 2019. There is no change in EBLR rate and this rate changes with change in benchmark interest rate of Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

In the December monetary policy, RBI decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent.

This was the ninth time in a row when the central bank decided to maintain the status quo on benchmark lending rate to support growth rate.

The bank has also revised the benchmark prime lending rate to 12.3 per cent from 12.2 per cent.

With regard to domestic term deposits, the bank has decided to raise it by 0.1 per cent for high value deposits over Rs 2 crore.