RBI maintains key lending rate unchanged

Dashing hopes of both the government and India Inc., the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its second bi-monthly monetary policy review of 2017-18 on Wednesday kept its key lending rate unchanged at 6.25 per cent.

This is the fourth consecutive policy review in which the apex bank has maintained status quo on its repo, or short-term lending rate, since it reduced it by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent in October 2016.

In Wednesday's decision, the monetary policy committee (MPC) voted five members in favour of holding the rate and one opposing.

At its last policy review in April, the RBI had kept the key lending rate unchanged but narrowed its policy corridor and hiked the reverse repo rate to six per cent.