Pre Monetary Policy quote by Umesh Revankar, Executive Vice Chairman, Shriram Finance

"The RBI's ‘State of the Economy’ monthly bulletin for November acknowledged the robust festival-driven demand and positive consumer sentiment. It also mentioned the decline of inflation to 4.7% in October. These statements have kindled hope of a return to the declining rates regime. However, recently, the RBI raised risk weights on consumer credit, credit card receivables, and NBFC exposure, by 25 percentage points up to 125% ostensibly to control the liquidity in the system. It clearly indicates that the financial regulator, rightly so, is in no mood to let its guard down on inflation. However, these measures do have impact on MSME on-lending by NBFC’s putting breaks on credit growth temporarily.

While the inflation numbers over the last few quarters have been encouraging, we agree with the RBI’s view that our economy is still not out of the woods. Accordingly, we expect the MPC to maintain the repo rate at 6.5% as it aims to stabilise inflation around the 4% medium-term target by controlling the liquidity in the system. We further anticipate no rate cuts till the beginning of the next fiscal year.”