India: Neutral pause, watching liquidity and tariffs
High bar for further cuts, growth will matter more than inflation.
Group Research - Econs6 Aug 2025
  • The RBI policy committee voted for a neutral pause.
  • Held GDP forecast unchanged, cut inflation along our view.
  • We revise our forecast and expect no further cuts.
  • We present a study of liquidity, deposit and credit growth trends.
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RBI pauses: Decision and economic assessment

The RBI monetary policy committee (MPC) decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 5.5% in August in a unanimous vote. This was in line with the consensus view and in contrast to our expectation for a 25bp rate cut. Policy guidance was neutral and non-committal compared to market expectations for dovish undertones.

Policy outlook

The MPC is likely to be guided by growth rather than inflation in the months ahead. The neutral guidance has raised the bar for further rate cuts, prompting us to revise our forecast and expect no further cuts. Window to lower rates might emerge in October, though will require a significant growth shock to convince policymakers to ease further. One year ahead, factoring in the Apr-Jun26 inflation forecast at 4.9% and repo rate at 5.5%, the real rate buffer will narrow significantly to 60bps vs preferred 140-190bp. The terminal rate is likely to stay at 5.5% this year.

Tariff developments

In the post policy commentary, the RBI MPC highlighted that global developments are not viewed as a direct risk to growth or inflation. On inflation, the heavyweight food and dominant presence of non-tradables are expected to limit the first order impact of tariff and related developments.

Analysis of liquidity and credit growth

During the last two years of strong credit growth, there was much pressure on banks to generate deposits to back this demand, in effect widening the wedge between the two (we discussed this here India: Slowing inflation profile and liquidity nuance). Pressure has partly subsided as loan growth came off the boil into FY26.

Secondly, the central bank changed its tact on liquidity to prefer a significant surplus (~1% of net demand and time liabilities (NDTL)) to smoothen policy transmission, reduce frictional shortages and spur credit demand. We undertook an analytical study on the past credit, deposit and banking liquidity growth trends, taking yoy% time series (see background notes at the end of the report).


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Radhika Rao

Senior Economist – Eurozone, India, Indonesia
[email protected]

Daisy Sharma

Data Analytics
[email protected]


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