The cash reserve ratio (CRR) is the percentage of the total deposits a bank needs to maintain as liquid cash. This is a requirement of the RBI which maintains the cash reserve/ A bank can neither earn interest on this liquid cash maintained with the RBI nor use it for investing and lending purposes.
RBI has issued several policy changes post the pandemic and after the conflict in Europe. They are as follows:
The Reserve Bank of India, by the notification dated 04.05.2022[1] announced the increase of the cash reserve ratio of all the banks by 50 base points, from 4.00 per cent to 4.50 per cent of their net demand and time % demand liabilities (NDTL). The withdrawal of liquidity through this increase in the CRR would be of the order of 87,000 crores.
“Time liabilities”refer to the liabilities which the commercial banks are liable to repay to the customers after an agreed period, and “demand liabilities” are customer deposits which are repayable on demand.
These changes have been made in exercise of the powers conferred under :
The above changes have been made as an alteration to the previous notification which was issued on the 5th of February 2021[2], in which the RBI notified that the Cash Reserve Ratio required to be maintained with the RBI was 3.50 per cent.
1https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=12313&Mode=0#AN
2https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=12020&Mode=0#AN