Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday that he expects public sector undertaking (PSU) banks to cut interest rates soon.
The statement comes following the lenders' reluctance to pass on the benefit of monetary policy easing by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
“We do not put pressure on them (PSU banks for interest rate cut). We only expect, and our expectations come true,” Jaitley told reporters here after addressing the RBI board.
On rate cuts in future, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said it would depend on the pattern of inflation, and added that the central bank would carefully watch the impact of unseasonal rains and hailstorm on the price situation.
While the RBI cut interest rates by 0.50 per cent between January and March, only a few banks have lowered their rates since January 15, when the RBI announced the first of its two successive rate cuts.
The issue of lowering interest rates was also discussed earlier this month in a meeting of heads of all state-run banks, chaired by Jaitley.
Some banks had said at the time that they would wait for further signals on the RBI’s monetary policy on April 7 before passing on the benefits of the rate cuts to their retail and corporate borrowers.
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