The Reserve Bank of India has decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent. Announcing the sixth and final bi-monthly monetary policy for the current fiscal, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has unanimously decided to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent.
Consequently, other rates will also be unchanged. RBI had reduced Repo rate by 25 basis points in December 2025. RBI has revised outlook for CPI inflation in first Quarter of 2026-27 to 4 percent and second Quarter to 4.2 per cent. In December, the Central bank projected it at 3.9 per cent and 4.0 per cent, respectively.
The governor said that the slight upward revision in the inflation outlook is primarily due to an increase in prices of precious metals, which contribute about 60-70 basis points.
RBI has also revised real GDP growth projections for first Quarter of 2026-27 to 6.9 per cent and second Quarter to 7.0 per cent. After the last meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, RBI has projected real GDP growth for first Quarter at 6.7 per cent and the second Quarter at 6.8 per cent. RBI has proposed to issue draft guidelines on limiting liability of customers in unauthorised electronic banking transactions.
The Governor said that, under these guidelines, the RBI is planning to introduce a framework to compensate customers up to an amount of 25000 rupees for losses incurred in small-value fraudulent transactions.
The Governor added that the Bank will also publish a discussion paper on possible measures to enhance the safety of digital payments, which may include lagged credits and additional authentication for specific classes of users like senior citizens.
The Reserve Bank is also planning to issue draft guidelines relating to mis-selling and regarding the recovery of loans and engagement of recovery agents.
Under this, the RBI will issue comprehensive instructions to regulated entities on advertising, marketing and sales of financial products and services.
RBI has also decided to review and harmonise all the extant conduct-related instructions on engagement of recovery agents and other aspects related to recovery of loans.
RBI will also announce revised draft guidelines for Lead Bank Scheme, Kisan Credit Card Scheme and the Business Correspondent Model.
