We are going for a slower pace of growth: Mehraboon Irani, Nirmal Bang Securities

Mehraboon Irani, Principal & Head-Pvt. Client Group Business, Nirmal Bang Securities in an interview with ET now talks about the banking sector

With the kind of aggressive rate hikes that we are seeing banks follow up post the RBI move, what is the call on the sector now?

If you ask me on the banking sector or the market as a whole, the fact is simple that we are going ahead as far as a slowdown goes. The fact of the case is market as such is showing a lot of resilience. Lot of people are trying to show little bit of tinkering here and there. I have been stating this right from the time the budget was announced India as a country cannot afford to have on a sustainable basis a high GDP growth and that I think is on the wall on now.

People are now talking of may be 8.5%-8%, the fact is India cannot afford to consistently have these numbers because India by its structure will have other types of problems. I belong to the 1990 speed of the market where I have seen possibly me paying on a loan at around 15.5%-16% interest rate and on my FDs I was getting 12%-12.5%.

Economic numbers which will come today make you feel that optically the picture is good. We are going in for a slower pace of growth and that is going to affect margins, that is going to affect corporate performance. I think sooner or later the Indian markets are going to get derated.