RBI allows 3% more of SLR for LCR

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has addressed the liquidity issues of commercial banks by easing the regulations on the liquidity coverage ratio.

On Thursday, it allowed banks to qualify 10% of SLR bonds as Liquidity Coverage Ratio ( LCR) from 7% earlier, a requirement mandated under the Basel-III accounting norms from their Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) requirements. The move will help banks to use an additional Rs 2.8 lakh crore of their resources for lending.

The Reserve Bank had met banks on Tuesday to discuss their liquidity woes. “We are an open central bank.” RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said at CII conference referring to the l meeting in which banks complained liquidity shortage seeking a total of 15% of SLR be made eligible for accounting LCR. “We will allow banks to use 3% more SLR under LCR” Rajan said

In a circular issued to banks, the central bank said “ It has been decided that …banks will be permitted to reckon government securities held by them up to another 3 per cent of their NDTL-net demand and time liabilities- within the mandatory SLR requirement for the purpose of computing their LCR.”

Banks have been facing tight market liquidity forcing them to borrow from the Reserve Bank their daily liquidity requirements and have been saying that because of tight liquidity they have not been able to pass on the benefit of interest rate cuts to the borrowers. They have borrowed an average of Rs 1.3 lakh crore from the RBI in January. The additional resources released will come in handy in the fourth quarter when conventionally credit demand is high.