RBI Monetary Policy Meet: Shaktikanta Das To Announce MPC Decision Today. Where To Watch & What To Expect

Led by the inflationary pressure, RBI may raise the policy repo rate by 40 basis points and hike it further by 0.35 per cent in August, according to economists and financial market analysts.

New Delhi: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will announce its policy decision on today at 10 am. The MPC meeting, which began on Monday will end with the announcement of the MPC’s decisions regarding key interest rates, CRR, and policy amendments to be made by the RBI governor. The post policy press conference will be telecasted at 12 PM on Wednesday. The RBI had increased the repo rate by 40 basis points to 4.40 percent on May 4, up from 4 percent previously. It was the first increase in the policy repo rate in nearly two years. The repo rate is the interest rate at which the central bank lends short-term funds to banks.

Where to watch?

His speech will be streamed live on various platforms. You can watch the LIVE address of RBI governor Shaktikanta Das on the following platforms.

YouTube: You can check the live address on this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm9xeZMGD_M

Watch out for the Monetary Policy statement of the RBI Governor @DasShaktikanta at 10:00 am on June 08, 2022
YouTube: https://t.co/8yrf3xazA5

Post policy press conference telecast at 12:00 noon on the same day
YouTube: https://t.co/bG01WNycHy#rbipolicy #rbigovernor pic.twitter.com/USGCiFiEAP

Facebook: The address will be most likely be streamed on Reserve Bank of India’s Facebook page.

Twitter: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das’ address to the country is likely to be streamed on the Central Bank’s official Twitter handle @RBI.

What to expect from MPC announcement?

Das already hinted at the rate hike during an interview earlier where he said, "Expectation of rate hike is a no-brainer, there will be some increase in the repo rates, but by how much I will not be able to tell now but to say that 5.15 may not be very accurate." Led by the inflationary pressure, RBI may raise the policy repo rate by 40 basis points and hike it further by 0.35 per cent in August, taking it to the pre-pandemic level of 5.15 per cent, according to economists and financial market analysts.

In a report, BofA Securities said it expects RBI MPC to raise the repo rate by 40 bps in June and 35 bps in August. "We see the RBI MPC revise up their inflation forecast, retain growth estimate and stance focusing on withdrawal of accommodation," it added. Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist, Bank of Baroda, said: "The increase in repo rate can be taken as almost given but the quantum may not be more than 25-35 bps as the earlier minutes of the meeting held in May indicated that the MPC was not in favour of a large increase in repo rate at one shot.”

Meanwhile economists at Barclays Plc and Citigroup Inc expect the central bank raising its average inflation forecast for the year ending March to above 6 per cent from 5.7per cent seen previously.