RBI repo rate – Indian central bank’s current and historic interest rates

Charts – historic RBI interest rates

RBI – Reserve Bank of India

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is the Indian central bank. The RBI’s most important goal is to maintain monetary stability – moderate and stable inflation – in India. For an overview of current inflation in India, click here or here for current inflation by country. The RBI uses monetary policy to maintain price stability and an adequate flow of credit. Rates which the Indian central bank uses for this are the bank rate, repo rate, reverse repo rate and the cash reserve ratio. Reducing inflation has been one of the most important goals for some time.
Other important tasks of the Reserve Bank of India are:

· to maintain the population’s confidence in the system, to safeguard the interests of those who have entrusted their money and to supply cost-effective banking systems to the population;

· to manage foreign currency controls: facilitating exports, imports and international payment traffic and developing and maintaining the trade in foreign currencies in India;

· issuing money (the rupee) and adequately ensuring a high quality money supply;

· providing loans to commercial banks in order to maintain or grow the Gross National Product (GNP);

· acting as the government’s banker;

· acting as the banks’ banker.

RBI Repo rate or key short term lending rate

When reference is made to the Indian interest rate this often refers to the repo rate, also called the key short term lending rate. If banks are short of funds they can borrow rupees from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at the repo rate, the interest rate with a 1 day maturity. If the central bank of India wants to put more money into circulation, then the RBI will lower the repo rate. The reverse repo rate is the interest rate that banks receive if they deposit money with the central bank. This reverse repo rate is always lower than the repo rate. Increases or decreases in the repo and reverse repo rate have an effect on the interest rate on banking products such as loans, mortgages and savings.
This page shows the current and historic values of Indian central bank’s Repo rate.
For a summary of the current interest rates of a large number of central banks please click here.

Tables – current and historic Indian central bank interest rates

Source: RBI repo rate – Indian central bank’s current and historic interest rates