Punjab National Bank (PNB)

Shri Atul Kumar Goel, MD and CEO of Punjab National Bank (PNB)

Overall View on RBI’s Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy dated 10.02.2022

RBI policy stance to act as an enabler of investment demand and credit growth.

RBI has decided to keep the benchmark rates unchanged for tenth time in a row with continued accommodative stance in order to revive and sustain the growth recovery as policy is at present required for broad based growth going forward. RBI also expressed that despite uncertainty on global economic front, Indian economy to remain the fastest growing economy in the world.

On banking front, RBI held that the banks in India should continue the process of capital augmentation and also focus on the governance and risk management. RBI expressed sanguinity about the health of Banks’ balance sheets and we believe that the improving capacity utilization aiding investment demand will lead to credit growth. 

The current liquidity scenario remained in surplus despite showing moderation with migration towards longer tenor as VRRRs of longer maturity increased from 50 bps from Aug’21. In Liquidity management, the announcements of the VRR and VRRR of 14 day tenor to operate as main liquidity management tool; and availability of fixed rate reverse repo and Marginal Standing Facility from 5:30-11:59 PM on all days will facilitate the better liquidity management.

Amongst other announcements, Extension of on tap liquidity for emergency health services and contact intensive sectors till June 30, 2022 augurs well for the sector. Enhancing Limit for inflows under the Voluntary Retention Scheme hiked aimed at providing additional sources of capital for domestic debt markets. The other announcement of enhancing cap on e-rupee vouchers to strengthen the digitalization efforts. New directions are to be announced for CDS & participation in the offshore Foreign Currency Settled Overnight Indexed Swap (FCS-OIS) market will provide further fillip to the corporate bond market and interest rate derivative market respectively. NACH mandate limit increased to ₹ 3 crore for TReDS settlements will support the liquidity requirement of MSMEs.