ICICI Bank hikes MCLRs by 10 bps across tenures

ICICI Bank, the country’s third-largest lender by assets, raised its marginal cost of funds-based lending rates (MCLRs) by 10 basis points (bps) across tenures. Its one-year MCLR now stands at 8.8%.

MCLRs for other tenures range between 8.55% and 8.75%. The revised rates came into effect on Saturday.

One-year MCLRs at ICICI’s larger peers State Bank of India (SBI) and HDFC Bank stand at 8.5% and 8.7%, respectively.

Late last month, SBI had raised interest rates on some retail term deposits by 10 bps, signalling that it may be gearing up for a hike in lending rates later this month.

SBI has changed the date for the monthly review of its MCLRs to the 10th of every month from the 1st earlier, according to a notification on the bank’s website.

ICICI Bank’s decision to raise lending rates comes days ahead of the announcement of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) monetary policy decision, scheduled for Wednesday. While the central bank is widely expected to hold the repo rate at 6.5%, banks are still passing on the impact of past rate hikes to their borrowers. Tight liquidity conditions in the system may also be forcing their hand, experts say.

“Term deposit rates have been broadly flat over the last few months and will likely reflect an upward trend going ahead,” Kotak Institutional Equities said in a note last month, adding: “The data (on lending rates) from October should see further improvement considering that the liquidity issues facing the sector, or more specifically the wholesale players, started from the last week of September.”

ICICI Bank