In a relief to customers, State Bank of India on Thursday slashed benchmark lending rate by 15 basis points, and introduced special deposit scheme for senior citizens with higher interest rate.
The country’s largest lender has introduced a new product’SBI Wecare Deposit’ for senior citizens in the retail term deposit segment tosafeguard their interests in the current falling rate regime.
Under this new product, an additional 30 basis pointspremium will be payable for senior citizens retail term deposits with ‘5 Yearsand above’ tenor only, it said. The scheme will be in effect up to September30, it said.
However, SBI slashed its interest rates on retail termdeposits by 20 basis points for ‘up to 3 Years’ tenor, effective from May 12 inview of adequate liquidity in the system as well as with the bank.
With regard to revision in the lending rate, the bank said,the marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) comes down to 7.25 percent from 7.40 per cent with effect from May 10.
Consequently, EMIs on eligible home loan accounts (linked toMCLR) will get cheaper by approxRs 255.00 for a 30 year loan of Rs 25 lakh, itsaid.
This is the 12th consecutive reduction in the bank’s MCLR,the lender added.
With regard to senior citizen fixed deposits, it said, 50basis points higher interest rate is applicable for term deposits of ‘below 5years’ tenor. “For retail term deposits of ‘5 years & above’ tenor(new product) 80 basis points higher than the rate applicable for the general public(30 basis points extra premium),” it said.
This additional premium will not be payable in case ofpremature withdrawal of such deposits, it said.Last month, SBI had trimmed the MCLR by 35 basispoints across all tenors effective April 10. The one-year MCLR comes down to7.40 per cent per annum from 7.75 per cent.