Impact: Negative (Corporate Borrowing); Negative (Consumer Market)

Brief: Weighted Average Call Money Rate (WACR), which is the base on which the Repo is calculated and a proxy for inter-bank lending - has risen to 6.46%; highest since FY16 end. The differential between WACR and Repo is now just 4 bps, signifying liquidity pressures faced by the banking system

Domestic financing is creating liquidity pressure in the banking system as external financing becomes less attractive during this time. Financing its deficit from external market sources has been highly expensive for Indian Government as its 10-Yr GSec bond yields have reached a four year high – nearing 500 bps. Therefore, the Government is avoiding financing from external market and relying extensively from internal sources. Consequently, funding from domestic market has recorded a 13% growth in FY19 (YTD). Funds raised from domestic market sources reached Rs. 5.8 trillion as on August 2018, as against Rs.5.2 trillion during the same time, the previous year. External sources however lost favor, in contrast, as debt issued dropped by (-) 30% - currently pegged at Rs. 36 billion (FY19 YTD).

Therefore, an additional Rs. 67,000 crore worth of capital was raised internally (YTD); this has resulted in tremendous money market pressures as commercial banks exhaust their liquidity in Government debt acquisitions. We reckon that this very concern influenced the RBI to increase repo rate by 50bps consecutively over the last two MPC meetings in order to spur savings. Fear not unfounded as assessing the WACR (Weighted Average Call Money Rate) and Repo rate differential average from quarterly perspective suggests that in Q2, FY19 - it has reached 20 bps (nearing the lower side of liquidity). A WACR of 6.46% on a Repo of 6.50% indicates that it is now becoming expensive for banks to lend each other and finance short term trades. This level has been already reached on 14th September 2018, signifying a serious liquidity deficit in the system.

Source: RBI; Acuité Research

Source: RBI; Acuité Research; *Until September 14th 2018