Interest rates to ease after March: PNB

India's second largest public sector lender Punjab National Bank today said that interest rates will start coming down after March.

"Interest rates seem stable for some time now. We expect the interest rates will start coming down after March," Punjab National Bank Chairman and Managing Director K C Chakrabarty said on the sidelines of a function here.

The several hikes in repo rate and CRR effected by the Reserve Bank of India to tame inflation has resulted in the hardening of interest rates.

The Reserve Bank last hiked the short-term lending rate (repo rate) by 50 basis points and mandatory cash requirement(Cash Reserve Rate) by 25 basis points in its monetary policy review on July 29.

 

Following this most of the pubic sector banks increased their benchmark lending rates to 14 per cent.