Crowd-puller

Mumbai, June 27: Bank deposits are regaining some of their appeal.

A day after it raised the prime lending rate (PLR), the State Bank of India today raised interest rates on domestic term deposits by 15-75 basis points for various tenures.

The increased rates for the SBI deposits will be effective from June 30.The country’s largest lender had raised its PLR by 0.5 percentage point to 12.75 per cent.

Punjab National Bank (PNB), the country’s second largest nationalised bank, also announced that it would be raising its benchmark PLR by 50 basis points to 13 per cent.

At the same time, PNB will raise deposit rates by up to 50 basis points for various maturities in a bid to maintain its net interest margin. The new rates will be effective from July 1.

Canara Bank and the State Bank of Mysore have also raised their PLRs. While Canara has raised its benchmark lending rate by 50 basis points to 13.25 per cent, the State Bank of Mysore told stock exchanges that it had raised the PLR by 50 basis points. The bank also revised its deposit rates by a similar margin.

It is learnt that the asset-liability committee of the Bank of Baroda has also decided to raise the benchmark lending rate to 13.25 per cent. The bank is expected to make a formal announcement in a day or two.

The SBI informed stock exchanges that for deposits with maturity of 181 days but less than a year, the interest rate would be 8 per cent, up from 7.5 per cent.

Deposits with maturity of one year to less than two years and two years to less than three years will fetch an interest rate of 9.5 per cent, up from 8.75 per cent.

Interest rates on deposits for three years to less than five years will be 9 per cent against 8.85 per cent. The bank has also increased the deposit rates for senior citizens.

However, interest rates for short-term deposits with maturity up to 180 days have not been altered.