The Reserve Bank of India is about to spell out the direction of interest rates for one of the world's biggest economies, and the announcement is now just a day away. The central bank's rate setting panel, the Monetary Policy Committee, opened a three day meeting on Monday, August 3, and its verdict will be delivered to the public on Wednesday, August 5. For millions of home, car and business borrowers, the repo rate decides how expensive their loans are, which is exactly why every one of these meetings is watched so closely.
When the announcement will happen
Governor Sanjay Malhotra will read out the outcome of the meeting on Wednesday, August 5, at 10:00 AM IST. Once he finishes the policy statement, the Governor and the full six member committee will face the media in a press conference. There they will walk through the reasoning behind the decision and lay out their thinking on inflation, economic growth, liquidity in the banking system, and the road ahead for policy.
Where you can watch it live
Anyone who wants to follow the statement and the press conference as they happen has several official options. The proceedings will be streamed on the Reserve Bank's own website, on its official YouTube channel, and across its official social media handles. No cable connection or paid subscription is needed to tune in.
The six members who take the call
The Monetary Policy Committee is a six member body, and Governor Sanjay Malhotra chairs it. Alongside him sit Deputy Governor Dr. Poonam Gupta and RBI Executive Director Indranil Bhattacharyya. The remaining three are external experts named by the Central Government: Prof. Ram Singh, economist Saugata Bhattacharya, and Dr. Nagesh Kumar. Together the group votes on where the benchmark rate should stand.
What most economists are predicting
The strong expectation is that the committee will leave the repo rate untouched at 5.25%. A repo rate is the rate at which the central bank lends to commercial banks, and it works as the anchor for almost every loan in the country, so even a decision to do nothing carries weight for households and businesses alike. Retail inflation is presently sitting inside the central bank's comfort band, which removes any urgent pressure to act. Even so, the bank is likely to stay guarded. A pile of external risks, global uncertainty, geopolitical friction, climbing crude oil prices, and a rupee under strain, gives policymakers plenty of reason to hold their nerve rather than shift course.
A look back at the June meeting
The last round of policy, held from June 3 to June 5, ended with no movement on the repo rate, which stayed at 5.25%. The committee also kept its stance labelled as 'neutral', signalling it was ready to move either way depending on how the data unfolds. In that same review, the standing deposit facility (SDF) rate was retained at 5%, while both the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the bank rate were held at 5.5%. If Wednesday's decision follows the script the market is betting on, this steady picture will simply carry into the new cycle.
