BFSI stocks trade weakly ahead of Wednesday's RBI monetary policy announcements; Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserve, ICICI Lombard among biggest losers

Ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) monetary policy announcements on Wednesday, the banking and financial stocks from both large-cap and broader markets showed weakness during Tuesday’s trading sessions. 

The central bank is expected to raise the key interest rates to control the rising inflation tomorrow after the three-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting concludes. 

The 12-share Nifty Bank and 20-pack Nifty Financial Services were dragging the benchmark index Nifty50 most, as both fell over 1 per cent. 

Among heavyweights, Bajaj twins – Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserve were the top losers around 2:30 pm and were down nearly 3 and 2 per cent respectively on the intraday basis. In the broader markets, ICICI Lombard corrected around 5 per cent. 

Among banks, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank were top losers, down by over 2 and 1.5 per cent respectively. While IDFC First Bank and PNB were top losers from broader markets, down over 1 per cent each intraday. 

The financial companies’ shares have been under pressure after the RBI on Monday came out with a set of norms for provisioning for standard assets by large Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) in view of the increasing role played by such entities in the financial system. 

Umesh Revankar, Vice Chairman & MD, Shriram Transport Finance expects the RBI to hike interest rates by anywhere between 25-40 bps in the June policy meeting. No doubt inflation has risen in India, and it is largely attributable to the global geo-political environment, he said. 

The GDP growth of 8.7 per cent in FY22 on the low base, still shows that domestic demand remains feeble and with higher inflation dampening the purchasing power, the regulator may not want to raise rates too aggressively, the Vice Chairman & MD, Shriram Transport Finance also said. 

RBI is taking measures to bring down excess liquidity in the system to control the inflation, meanwhile, the government is also managing inflation by reducing tax on petroleum products and restricting the exports of essential commodities, Revankar added.