ICCI Bank to review interest rate policy soon: Kamath

New Delhi, Nov 3 (UNI) ICICI Bank Chairman K V Kamath today said his bank will review its interest rates policy in the next few days, after monitoring the impact on liquidity of the recent Central Bank's steps to infuse liquidity.

''We will review interest rates after watching the impact of the RBI decision on liquidity,'' Mr Kamath told reporters here.

''It is premature to consider interest rates right now, but we will review it in the next few days,'' he said.

The RBI has undertaken a series of cuts in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and repo rate recently. The Central Bank on Saturday unexpectedly cut its key lending rate by 50 basis points to 7.5 per cent and Cash Reserve requirements by 100 basis points to 5.5 per cent to infuse liquidity into the system.

Significantly, Finance Minister P Chidambaram is meeting heads of Public Sector Banks tomorrow to review the interest rate scenario and lending operations by them.

Private Sector banks may be waiting to take a cue from the meeting tomorrow.

Mr Kamath, however, said signals to banks from the Central Bank is very clear and that lending and deposit rates will react to liquidity.

Speaking on his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as part of the premier's renedezvous with captains of industry, Mr Kamath, who is also the CII President, said: ''We have got an issuance that the government and the industry is on one side and the government will work with the industry to see that any challenge that industry faces will be alleviated.'' UNI MP-GS SBA RN1930