Bankers meet RBI prior to quarterly policy review

The bankers who attended the meeting are State Bank Chairman O P Bhatt, Punjab National Bank Chairman and Managing Director K C Chakrabarty, Bank of Baroda CMD M D Mallya, Bank of India CMD T S Narayanaswami and HDFC Bank's Managing Director Aditya Puri.     

RBI Deputy Governors, Rakesh Mohan, P Leeladhar and Shyamala Gopinath represented the apex bank in today's meeting.     

 

Indian Banks Association's Chief Executive H N Sinor, who was also present at the meeting, told reporters that today's meet was a pre-monetary policy consultation between the bankers and the RBI and was largely limited to discussions on various industry aspects.     

High inflation and the consequential hike in RBI's key rates had forced banks to jack up their interest rates in order to avert a further decline in their growth.     

Sinor said the high inflation has had an effect on the retail portfolios of banks. He, however, added that there was still a good credit demand.     

"These are challenging times...Oil prices are high and the high inflation has had its repercussions on the retail portfolios of banks...However, the overall growth of the industry and the economy as a whole remains positive," Sinor said.     

RBI is scheduled to announce its quarterly review of monetary policy on July 29.