Axis Bank cuts base lending rate by 10 bps

Axis Bank Ltd, India's third-biggest private sector lender , said on Thursday it cut its base lending rate by 10 basis points, effective October 15, becoming the first bank to cut lending rate in recent months.

The bank cut the base lending rate "as the cost of fund has eased due to softening of interest rates based on improving liquidity and other macroeconomic developments," Sidharth Rath, the bank's president of treasury, business banking and capital markets, said in a statement, without elaborating.

The bank's new base rate is 10.15 per cent, from 10.25 per cent earlier.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has kept its key policy rate unchanged since late January, and has signalled that it would refrain from cutting interest rates until it is confident consumer inflation can be reduced to a target of 6 per cent by January 2016.

(Reuters)