SBI Cuts Lending Rate: The country’s largest lender State Bank of India on Thursday slashed the benchmark lending rate by 0.15 basis points and introduced a special deposit scheme for senior citizens with a higher interest rate.
State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, on Thursday, announced a 15-basis-point (0.15 percentage-point) reduction in its lending rates across all tenors. Following the reduction, which will come into effect from May 10, the one-year MCLR or marginal cost of the funds-based lending rate will come down to 7.25 percent from the current 7.40 percent. That marked the 12th consecutive reduction in the MCLR by the state-run lender.
To safeguard the interests of senior citizens in the current falling rate regime, the bank has introduced a new product ‘SBI Wecare Deposit’ for them in the retail term deposit segment, SBI said in a statement.
Under this scheme, an additional premium of 30 bps, or 0.30 percentage point, will be payable for senior citizens’ retail term deposits with tenors of five-years and above.
EMIs on eligible home loan accounts (linked to the MCLR) will come down by nearly Rs 255 for a 30-year loan of Rs 25 lakh, SBI said in a press release.
Besides the lending rate, the bank also announced a 20-bps cut in the interest rates for retail term deposits with tenors of up to three years. This will take effect from May 12.
Currently, SBI FDs between 7 days to 45 days fetches 3.5%. Term deposits between 46 days to 179 days give 4.5%. FDs of 180 days to less than one year fetches 5%. Deposits with maturity between 1 year and up to 10 years give 5.7%.
In March, SBI had slashed the interest rate on FDs by 20-50 bps across tenors effective 28 March 2020. That was the second rate cut in March. Earlier the bank had cut interest rates on FDs on 10 March.
