The Indian rupee strengthened on Friday after struggling for most of the week as global markets were jolted by fears of a trade war and foreign portfolio outflows persisted, pushing the rupee to its lifetime low past the 87 handle.

Today’s monetary policy reflects a steady state of thinking at RBI. Today’s rate cut continued the MPC pivot to the “neutral” stance in October and the CRR cut in December.

After cutting the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 50 bps from 4.5% of NDTL, to 4.0% of NDTL in the December 2024 policy, the RBI maintained status quo on CRR in the February 2025 policy. With the system liquidity deficit still at ₹1.96 Trillion, another CRR cut was expected to bridge the current liquidity gap, but that was not to be.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced its key repo rate on Friday for the first time since May 2020, aiming to provide stimulus to the sluggish economy, which is projected to grow at its slowest pace in four years during the current fiscal year.