Board of Directors of BoB meeting today to discuss post CRR hike

Mumbai, Feb 14 (UNI) The board of directors of Bank of Baroda (BOB) will meet here today to discuss post Cash Reserve Ration (CRR) scenariio.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a Press meet to announce his bank's signing of an MoU with Pioneer Global Asset Management Company (PGAMC) here today, the bank CMD Anil Khandelwal said ''My bank's board of directors are meeting here this evening to discuss the impact of the recent CRR hike by the Reserve Bank of India by 50 basis points, which is second time within past couple of months, on the performance of my bank.'' CRR is the sum which is necessarily to be kept by the banks with the RBI to meet their deposits and time liabilities (DTL) requirements.

Accepting the fact that the subsequent CRR hikes, which have been done by the Central Bank in its bid to moderate inflation, may put some pressure on the bank, Dr Khandelwal said deposit rates may also go up in case there was any hike in the interest rates by the banks. However, he maintained that every effort would be made to avoid any further hike in the EMIs for the existing home loans. Not to mention that by making subsequent hikes in CRR two times within past couple of months, the RBI had already sucked an amount of Rs 1,000 crore from Bank of Baroda alone.

In reply to a media query, Dr Khandelwal said deposit rates have gone up by 50 basis points in my bank in past six months. Referring to his bank's December results he said ''We have been able to slightly improve our Net Interest Margin (NIM) from 3.18 to 3.21.'' UNI