No CRR cuts likely in RBI policy review: Survey

The Reserve Bank is unlikely to heed calls for cutting the cash reserve ratio in the forthcoming monetary policy review, says a survey of market participants by HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland.

"We do not expect a cut in CRR this time to ease liquidity constraints, which would be addressed through open market operations," HSBC Global Research said in a note on Tuesday.

Similarly, 51 per cent of 105 market participants polled by RBS said they do not expect a CRR cut in the quarterly policy announcement next Tuesday.

Banks have been borrowing over Rs 1.50 lakh crore (Rs 1.5 trillion) daily from the overnight window for the past few days, which shows strain on liquidity.

At the customary pre-policy meeting with RBI officials, banks had asked for a cut in CRR -- the amount of deposits they have to keep with the Reserve Bank of India.

The Reserve Bank has been repurchasing the government securities from the market, in what it calls OMOs, to ease the liquidity situation.

It has bought securities worth over Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) in tranches over the past few weeks.

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The CRR rate is at 6 per cent and has been unchanged for over a year, with RBI focussed on taming inflation, increasing the repo or its lending rate.

Although inflation has moderated, it continues to be at the elevated levels.

There is no 'compelling reason' for RBI to ease the policy rate or repo rate, the HSBC statement said.

Similarly, about 90 per cent of corporates and financial institutions polled by RBS also said they do not expect a repo rate cut.

The headline inflation number for December declined to 7.5 per cent, but is still higher than Reserve Bank's comfort zone of around 5 per cent, and March-end expectation of 7 per cent.

The HSBC note, however, said RBI will advance rate and CRR cuts to the second quarter of 2012 rather than the second half of the year, as it had expected earlier.

In the RBS survey, 31.4 per cent of respondents said they expect a 0.25 per cent cut in CRR while 17.5 per cent expected a 0.50 per cent reduction.

A half of those polled said the rate tightening cycle has ended and said they expect a 0.50 per cent cut across rates during the year.

On the currency front, RBS said the median response stands at the rupee trading at 50 against the dollar by March and gaining further to Rs 49 by end of the year.