From correspondents in Maharashtra, India, 09:32 PM IST

The Bank of Rajasthan (BoR) Wednesday announced a 0.5 percent hike in its benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) and interest rate on term deposits. The revised rates came into effect Monday.

Announcing this here, BoR said that it increased its BPLR by 50 basis points - from 14.5 percent to 15 percent.

The bank said it was its first hike in BPLR in 15 months.

With this, it joined a slew of commercial banks to raise their lending rates after the central Reserve Bank of India increased the cash reserve ratio (CRR) and the repo rate recently.

BoR, in a communique said that with rise in BPLR, the interest rate structure for real estate sector and advance against the bank's own term deposit receipts (TDRs) have also been revised.

'Looking to high risk under real estate sector, BPLR has been revised from 2 percent to 4 percent,' the bank said, adding that due to rise in CRR cost, the interest rate structure of 'advance against bank's own TDRs' has also been revised.

All revisions are effective July 1.

Additionally, the RPLR (retail prime lending rate) has been hiked from 9.25 percent to 9.5 percent.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)