Fresh lending rates fall 93 basis points after 125-point repo cut
Fresh lending rates fell 93 basis points against a 125-basis-point repo rate cut from February 2025 to March 2026. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported the findings in its October 23, 2026 Bulletin release, covering two speeches, four articles and current statistics.
Repricing accounts for 80 points
Yuvraj Kashyap, Kamal Gupta and Arvind Jha attribute 80 basis points of the lending-rate decline to repricing and 13 to credit composition.
Their index-number framework separates changes in scheduled commercial banks' weighted average lending rate from changes in bank and sector loan weights.
Pallavi Pant, Monalisa Poali, Abhyuday Harsh, Brijesh P and Sona Chinngaihlian report double-digit annual credit growth among non-banking financial companies at end-December 2025.
Bad-loan ratios continued to decline, while a moderately higher bank-borrowing share indicated funding concentration.
Preliminary text mining found growing AI orientation in customer and financial applications, governance, digital infrastructure and data analytics.
Resilient activity meets inflation pressure
West Asian frictions and supply disruptions intensified inflation pressures as major central banks raised rates; advanced-economy yields raised fiscal and stability concerns.
Indian industry and services remained strong.
September CPI inflation rose across food, fuel and core components.
Double-digit export growth in the first six months of 2026-27 narrowed the trade deficit.
August foreign direct investment, external commercial borrowing and remittances strengthened; FCNR(B) swap inflows lifted reserves.
Faster signals, not official estimates
Bipul Ghosh, Narendra Singh and Sandhya Kuruganti combine night-time lights and Google Trends for Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat.
Quarterly state-value-added nowcasts outperform a univariate approach and supplement lagged annual official data.
The Bulletin articles express their authors' views, not the RBI's.
Source: RBI Bulletin – October 2026
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