The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das will address media today at 10 am. This will be the third presser of the RBI governor on the central bank's measures to address COVID-19 crisis. The press briefing comes after the government gave details of the Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package.
In his earlier addresses, the RBI governor announced a series of measures to infuse liquidity into the banking system and support the economy after the slump due to the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent nationwide lockdown.
The RBI had cut repo rates by 75 basis points in March and also announced several liquidity measures. The first address by the governor amid the lockdown was on March 27 while the second was on April 17.
The RBI Governor has had consultations with economists this week and today, he is likely to announce a 50 bps cut in the repo rate and around 75 bps cut in the reverse repo.
The RBI may also tweak the Targeted Long Term Repo (TLTRO) rules.
As widely expected, the governor may extend the loan moratorium by 3 months and announce changes to NPA classification rules.
Lakshmi Iyer, CIO-Debt & Head Product, Kotak Mahindra AMC expects regulatory announcements from the RBI governor.
“While we want monetary action from the RBI, today's announcements could be more on a regulatory front and probably lesser to do with something on the monetary side at this juncture,” she said.
"I think the biggest announcement that the markets would seek to hear today is how quick and how happy or willing a central bank is to monetize the deficit," Iyer added.
HR Khan, Former Dy Governor, RBI also expected some announcements on regulatory issues.
"I believe probably this conference will talk about some of the regulatory issues because this moratorium is coming to an end. The RBI governor also had meetings with bank CEOs and after that we have five rounds of packages announced by government. There has been some perception that something more needs to be done probably from RBI side, hence, they must be looking at some of the regulatory relaxations including certain further lines of credit to some of the refinancing institutions," Khan said.