Urjit Patel

Interest on Interest Case Can Open a Pandora’s Box. Govt and SC Need to Be Careful

Late last week the central government told the Supreme Court that it was ready to waive off the interest on interest (i.e. compound interest) on loans of up to Rs 2 crore during the moratorium period of six months between March and August 2020.

In an affidavit submitted to the Court, the government said: “The government… has decided that the relief on waiver of compound interest [interest on interest] during the six month moratorium period shall be limited to the most vulnerable category of borrowers. This category of borrowers, in whose case, the compounding of interest will be waived, will be MSME loans and personal loans up to Rs 2 crore.”

This response was as a part of the matter of Gajendra Sharma versus the Union of India.

The Reserve Bank of India refers to retail loans as personal loans. Hence, the types of loans which would get a waiver of compound interest for a period of six months of the moratorium are home loans, vehicle loans, education loans, consumer durables loans, credit card outstandings, normal personal loans and MSME loans. This benefit will be available to all borrowers who have taken loans of up to Rs 2 crore, irrespective of whether they opted for the moratorium or not.

Before offering my views on this, let’s first try and understand the concept of compound interest or interest on interest.

Let’s consider a home loan of Rs 2 crore to be repaid over a period of 20 years (or 240 months) at the rate of 8% per year. Let’s further assume that the loan was taken during the month of March and was immediately put under a moratorium (the need to make this assumption will soon become clear).

The moratorium lasted six months. The simple interest on the loan of Rs 2 crore amounts to Rs 8 lakh (8% of Rs 2 crore divided by 2). This is not how banks operate. They calculate interest on a monthly basis. At 8% per year, the monthly interest works out to 0.67% (8% divided by 12). The interest for the first month works out to Rs 1.33 lakh (0.67% of Rs 2 crore).

Since the loan is under a moratorium and is not being repaid, this interest is added to the loan amount outstanding of Rs 2 crore.
Hence, the loan amount outstanding at the end of the first month is Rs 2.013 crore (Rs 2 crore + Rs 1.33 lakh). In the second month, the interest is calculated on this amount and it works out to Rs 1.34 lakh (0.67% of Rs 2.013 crore).

In this case, we calculate interest on the original outstanding amount of Rs 2 crore. We also calculate the interest on Rs 1.33 lakh, the interest outstanding at the point of the first month, which has become a part of the loan outstanding.

At the end of the second month, the loan amount outstanding is Rs 2.027 crore (Rs 2.013 crore + Rs 1.34 lakh).  This happens every month, over the period of six months, as can be seen in the following table.

Interest on interest

 

Source: Author calculations.

At the end of six months, we end up with a loan outstanding of Rs 2.081 crore. This is Rs 8.134 lakh more than the initial loan outstanding of Rs 2 crore. As mentioned initially, the simple interest on Rs 2 crore at 8% for a period of six months works out to Rs 8 lakh.

Hence, the interest on interest works out to Rs 13,452 (Rs 8.134 lakh minus Rs 8 lakh).

What was the point behind doing all this math and trying to explain compound interest here?

The maximum amount on which the government is ready to waive off interest on interest is Rs 2 crore. For the kinds of loan under consideration Rs 2 crore outstanding is likely to be either on a home loan or a SME loan. In case of an SME loan, the interest rate will probably be more than 8%.

On a home loan of Rs 2 crore at 8% with 240 instalments (20 years) left to pay, the interest on interest for a period of six months works out close to Rs 13,500. The point is if an individual can afford to take on a loan of Rs 2 crore at 8% interest and pay an EMI of Rs 1.67 lakh, he can also pay an interest on interest of Rs 13,452. In case of an SME loan, the interest on interest would be higher than Rs 13,432, but it wouldn’t be an unaffordable amount. So, what’s the point of doing this?

An estimate made by Kotak Institutional Equities suggests that this move is likely to cost the government around Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 5,000 crore for banks + Rs 3,000 crore for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs)). While Rs 8,000 crore isn’t exactly small change but it’s not a very large amount for the central government.

But that’s not the point here. This move and the Supreme Court dabbling in this case will end up opening a pandora’s box. Let’s take a look at this pointwise.

1) Media reports suggest that the Supreme Court is not happy with the government’s offer to waive off interest on interest. A report on NDTV.com suggests that waiving interest on interest on loans of up to Rs 2 crore “was not satisfactory and asked for a do-over in a week”.

As the report points out: “The affidavit “fails to deal with several issues raised by petitioners”, the court said. The central government has been asked to consider the concerns of the real estate and power producers in fresh affidavits.” Clearly, neither the Court nor the companies are happy with interest on interest of loans of up to Rs 2 crore being waived off.
By offering to waive off interest on interest the government is trying to meet the Court halfway. Also, it is important that the Court along with the government realise that they are interfering with the process of interest setting by banks, something that largely works well.

What is interest at the end of the day? Interest is the price of money. By taking on this case, the Supreme Court has essentially gotten into deciding the price of money. When a bank pays an interest to a deposit holder, it is basically compensating the deposit holder for not spending the money immediately and saving it. This saving is then lent out to anyone who needs the money. This is how the financial intermediation process works.

The government and the Court are both trying to fiddle around with the price of money and that is not a good thing. Today one set of companies have approached the Court to decide on the price of money, tomorrow another set might do the same.

2) The companies are clearly not happy with the interest on interest waiver offer primarily because their loans are greater than Rs 2 crore and they want more. This is hardly surprising.

In the affidavit the government has said: “If the government were to consider waiving interest on all the loan and advances to all classes and categories of borrowers corresponding to the six-month period for which the moratorium was made available under the relevant RBI circulars, the estimated amount is Rs 6 lakh crore.”

To this, the response of the real estate lobby CREDAI was: “A lot of facts and figures in the government’s affidavit are without any basis and the finance ministry’s estimate that waiving off interest on loans to every category would cost banks Rs 6 lakh crore is wrong.”

It is easy to verify this with a simple back of the envelope calculation. As of March 2020, the non-food credit of banks was at Rs 103.2 lakh crore. The banks give loans to Food Corporation of India and other state procurement agencies to buy rice and wheat directly from farmers. Once these loans are subtracted from the overall loans of banks, what is left is non-food credit.

The weighted average lending rate of scheduled commercial banks was at 10% in March 2020 (This is publicly available data). Just the simple interest on non-food credit for six months works out to Rs 5.16 lakh crore (10% of Rs 103.2 lakh crore divided by 2).

Over and above this, there is lending carried out by NBFCs, on which interest on interest will have to be waived off as well. Also, once we take compound interest into account, Rs 6 lakh crore is clearly not a wrong figure as CREDAI wants us to believe.

The weighted average lending interest rate has fallen a little since March. In August, the weighted average lending rate of scheduled commercial banks was at 9.65%. Even after taking this into account, Rs 6 lakh crore is not an unrealistic number at all.  The government and the SC need to be careful regarding any demands of lowering interest rates on loans.

3) The real estate companies have an incentive in getting as much from the Court as possible. Financially, many of them are overleveraged. In fact, the former RBI Governor Urjit Patel in his book Overdraft refers to them as ‘living dead’ borrowers or zombies. And a living dead borrower will go as far as possible to survive at the cost of others. Any new bailout allows them to survive in order to die another day. Also, it allows them to continue not cutting home prices.

Clearly, companies want some reworking on the interest front (the interest on interest for a period of six months isn’t going to amount to much). But this raises a few fundamental questions.

If the Court and the government get around to cutting interest rates on loans, they will be deciding on the price of money. If they do it this one time, they are basically giving Indian capitalists the idea that they can approach the courts and challenge the price of money being charged. What stops it from happening over and over again?

While the government does try and influence the interest rates charged on loans by public sector banks, it can’t do so when it comes to private banks, which now form around 35% of the market when it comes to loans. Nevertheless, if any decision lowering interest rates is made they will end up influencing the price of money of private banks as well. And that isn’t a good thing. The last thing you want in a period of economic contraction is to try and disturb the banking system in any way.

4) Also, any interest rate waiver or reduction will give political parties ideas, like waiving off agricultural loans they can waive off other loans as well. And that can’t be a good thing for the stability of the Indian banking system.

5) If the government really wants to help businesses it can do so by reforming the goods and services tax and making it more user friendly. That will go a much longer way in helping the Indian economy without disturbing a process which currently works well. Any fiddling around with interest rates is largely going to help only zombie companies.

As Urjit Patel writes in Overdraft: “Sowing disorder by confusing issues is a tried-and-trusted, distressingly often successful routine by which stakeholders, official and private, plant the seeds of policy/regulation reversal in India.” This time is no different. Hence, both the government and the Supreme Court need to be very careful in how they deal with this. It is ultimately, the hard earned money of millions of Indians which is at stake. The Indian banking system is one of the few systems which people continue to trust. You wouldn’t want that to break down.

 

Dear RBI, It’s Not About Hoarding Notes, It’s About Shortage of Cash

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In the press conference that followed the monetary policy on December 7, 2016, R Gandhi, one of the deputy governors of the Reserve Bank of India(RBI), said: “We reiterate that there is adequate supply of notes and hoarding of notes helps nobody’s cause.”

The impression that the RBI is trying to create is that all is well and that it is the hoarders are responsible for the mess that prevails on the cash front, all through the country. But is that really the case?

In a press release dated December 8, 2016, the RBI said: “During the period from November 10, 2016 and December 7, 2016, banks have reported that banknotes worth Rs 4,27,684 crore have been issued to public either over the counter or through ATMs.”

The total value of the Rs 500 and the Rs 1,000 demonetised notes amount to Rs 15.44 lakh crore. Hence, the notes replaced amount to close to 27.7 per cent of the demonetised notes. Before the notes had been demonetised the total value of currency stood at Rs 17.87 lakh crore. This basically means that around 23.9 per cent of the currency that was in circulation before demonetisation has been replaced.

Hence, around one-fourth of the currency is back in circulation. The question is why doesn’t it feel like one-fourth? Why does it continue to be difficult to carry out cash transactions? The answer is straightforward.

To replace the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 demonetised notes, the government printed the Rs 2,000 note, first. This means that there is no note between Rs 100 and Rs 2,000. Hence, every time one tries to spend the Rs 2,000 note, it is tough going because the other party simply doesn’t have enough change going around.

This, despite the fact that the RBI has supplied: “lower denomination of the notes, that is Rs 100, Rs 50, Rs 20 and Rs 10… over its counters,” as well. In fact, it has supplied 19.1 billion pieces of denomination of these notes over the last one month. As deputy governor Gandhi put it “This is more than what the Reserve Bank had supplied to the public in the whole of the last three years.”

While the RBI said that a total of 19.1 billion pieces of notes of small denomination were printed, it doesn’t provide us with a breakdown of numbers. It doesn’t tell us how many Rs 100 notes were printed, how many Rs 50 notes were printed and so on. Hence, there is no way of finding out the total value of these notes that had been printed.

Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the total value of the lower denomination notes printed and pumped into the economy, would essentially amount to around 5-6 per cent of the total currency in circulation before demonetisation. Hence, the bulk of the notes printed have been Rs 2,000 notes. Given this, there isn’t enough change going around, which means even those who have Rs 2,000 notes are finding it very difficult to use it.

What this means is that the 23.9 per cent figure of the total amount of currency replaced in comparison to the currency in circulation before November 8, 2016, when demonetisation was carried out, is overstated to that extent.

There is another problem with the Rs 2,000 note. There is a huge rumour going around that it has been launched as a stop-gap arrangement and is likely to be demonetised soon. This rumour perhaps comes from what was mentioned in the press release accompanying the demonetisation decision. As the press release said: “High denomination notes are known to facilitate generation of black money… Infusion of Rs 2,000/- bank notes will be monitored and regulated by RBI.” It is well worth remembering that the original motive of demonetisation was to tackle black money and fake notes.

How will the situation play out in the days to come? Will things improve by the end of this month as the prime minister has repeatedly told the nation? As Urjit Patel said during the course of the monetary policy press conference: “What we have done over the last two weeks is recalibrated our production towards the 500 and the 100.” This is going to improve the situation a little, given that as more 500s hit the market, the chances of the 2000s being accepted will also go up, as more change becomes available.

Having said that it will take some time for the situation to get back to normal. With 500s and 100s being printed the rate of currency replacement will slow down. It takes four 500 rupee notes to replace the currency that one 2000 rupee could.

Further, it is worth remembering here that the capacity of the printing presses supplying RBI with notes is around 300 crore notes per month. This, when the presses work 24 hours a day and for the full month.

The total number of 500 rupee notes demonetised stand at 1716.5 crore. At 300 crore notes a month, it will easily take five to six months to replace the total lot. Even if all the notes are not printed, given the push towards cashless, it will be a while before there is enough cash going around in the economy.

Hence, the point is that people are not hoarding cash. There simply isn’t enough cash going around. But what about all the raids all across the country and the cash being found during these operations? Isn’t that hoarding cash? Yes. Nevertheless, these seizures at best amount to a few hundred crore, which is a minuscule part of the overall currency that has been printed and pumped into the economy. At times, one does get excited looking at absolute numbers, but to put things in a proper perspective, it always makes sense to look at percentages.

To conclude, currency or cash is not the only form of money going around. There are other forms as well. Nevertheless, for a country where 98 per cent of the consumer transactions happen in cash, cash remains the major form of money. How difficult it is to understand this basic fact?

The column originally appeared on Equitymaster on December 12, 2016

Demonetisation is Dead — Long Live Demonetisation

rupee

When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir? – often wrongly attributed to John Maynard Keynes.

In the press conference that followed today’s monetary policy, one data point and one clarification, has essentially made clear that Narendra Modi’s big demonetisation plan is not going the way it was expected to.

When the plan was announced a month back on November 8, the one big aim of the plan was to tackle black money along with fake currency notes. Black money is essentially money that has been earned through legitimate or illegitimate means, but on which taxes have not been paid.

As on November 8, 2016, 685.80 crore Rs 1,000 notes were in circulation. Over and above this, 1716.50 crore of Rs 500 notes were in circulation. The total value of demonetised notes amounted to Rs 15.44 lakh crore.

These notes were demonetised and suddenly had no value. These notes can be deposited in banks and post offices, up to December 30, 2016 and the money will be credited in the bank account or the post office savings account.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in a press release dated November 28, 2016, had said that Rs 8,11,033 crore worth of demonetised notes had been deposited back with the banks. Over and above this, Rs 33,948 crore worth of demonetised notes were exchanged for new notes as well as notes that continued to be legal tender. Initially, notes of up to Rs 4,000 could be exchanged. This was increased to Rs 4,500. Then decreased to Rs 2,000 and finally done away with.

By value the demonetised notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 formed more than 86 per cent of the currency in circulation. The hope was that a certain portion of this currency would be black money held in the form of cash. And this black money would not be deposited into banks, for the fear of generating an audit trail.

In the process, black money would be destroyed. QED.

This logic seemed flawless that almost everybody bought it initially, including yours truly. The belief was that almost 20 per cent of the high denomination notes are black money. (I am yet to figure out how experts writing on the issue arrived at this figure. But once they did, almost everyone seemed to use it).

The total value of the demonetised notes stood at Rs 15.44 lakh crore. Given this, 20 per cent of Rs 15.44 lakh crore worked out to around Rs 3 lakh crore. It was then said that this amount will not make it to the banks. The assumption was that those with black money will not manage to get their old demonetised notes exchanged for the new or the currently legal ones.

Thankfully, I did not fall for this totally. In the letter dated November 11, 2016 (Modi’s Next Shot on Black Money Should…) I had worked with the assumption that around one-third of the black money won’t get converted and hence, close to Rs 1.1 lakh crore of currency will get destroyed.

In fact, almost every other analyst and economist talked about close to Rs 3 lakh crore being destroyed. It was rather amateurish of them to assume that the Indian public won’t be able to convert their black money into white. There are various ways through which this has happened, which I will discuss in a separate piece.

As mentioned earlier up to November 27, 2016, Rs 8.11 lakh crore of demonetised notes had made it back to the banks. Since then, the RBI hasn’t put out any new data. Nevertheless, in the press conference that followed the monetary policy today, the deputy governor of RBI, R Gandhi, said that close to Rs 11.55 lakh crore of demonetised notes had made it back to the banks.

This means that around 75 per cent of the demonetised notes are already back with the banks. (Rs 11.55 lakh crore divided by Rs 15.44 lakh crore of demonetised notes). With 24 days still to go until December 30, the last day of depositing demonetised notes, chances are almost all the demonetised money will come back to the banks.

This is something that the Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told The Indian Express: “The government expects the entire money in circulation in the form of currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 which have been scrapped to come back to the banking system.”

Given this, the question of black money being destroyed does not exist. What this means is that the black money in the system has been exchanged for new notes in various ways.

There is another angle here which was the subject of multiple WhatsApp forwards. And this is how it went. Every rupee out (except Re 1 notes) there in the financial system is essentially a liability for the RBI. (If you look at the Rs 100 note carefully, you will see the RBI governor saying, I promise to pay the bearer the sum of one hundred rupees, for example).

The hope was that with Rs 3 lakh crore not coming back to the banks, the liabilities of the RBI will shrink. To that extent, the asset side of the balance sheet of the RBI would also need to shrink and that would lead to the RBI giving the government a special dividend of Rs 3 lakh crore.

Other than being a subject of many WhatsApp forwards this was something that many economists also wrote about in their research reports. Those against this logic said that, just because the notes don’t land up with the banks, does not mean that the RBI’s liabilities come down.

Today at the press conference, the RBI governor Urjit Patel was asked about this and he said: “They still carry the RBI’s liability as long as only the legal tender characteristic is withdrawn.” This basically meant in simple English that the RBI balance sheet wasn’t going to shrink and there was no question of a special dividend.

So where does that leave the Modi government? Revenue Secretary explained this to The Indian Express when he said: “Do you think that by simply depositing money in the bank account makes black money into white? It doesn’t. It will become white when we charge taxes, when the Income Tax department can reach up to them by issuing a notice and questioning them.”

The question is how many people will the Income Tax department go after, given their limited resources. Also, is this the way a government should go about raising revenue, by disrupting the entire economy?

Further, many people who have put money into banks are prepared to litigate and take this to court. As noted journalist Sucheta Dalal recently wrote: “Tax experts and retired income-tax commissioners have been confidently encouraging people to deposit their unaccounted money as this year’s income under Sections 68 and 69 of the Income-tax Act and get away by paying 30% tax. While there is a good chance that this may lead to litigation, case law from the two previous instances of currency demonetisation in India (1946 and 1978) may support this stand.”

All this brings us to the question whether demonetisation was really required? Will the tax that the government manages to collect through this effort, be more than enough to make up for the slowdown in economic growth that demonetisation is likely to cause?

Also, I really don’t like the idea of the income tax department being allowed a free run.

The column was originally published in Vivek Kaul’s Diary on December 7, 2016

The Biggest Challenge for the New RBI Governor Urjit Patel is…

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On Saturday, August 20, 2016, the Narendra Modi government appointed Urjit Patel, as the 24th governor of the Reserve Bank of India(RBI). He will take over fromRaghuram Rajan, on September 4, 2016.

Since Patel’s appointment two days back, a small cottage industry has emerged around trying to figure out what his thinking on various issues is. The trouble is that Patel has barely given any speeches, or interviews, for that matter, since he became the deputy governor of the RBI, in January 2013.

A check on the speeches page of the RBI tells me that he has given only one speech (you can read it here) and one interview (you can read it here) in the more than three and a half years, he has been the deputy governor of the RBI.

You can’t gauge much about his thinking from the speech which is two and a half pages long. As far as the interview goes, Patel has answered all of three questions. Some of his thinking can be gauged from the Report of the Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework¸ of which he has the Chairman. The report was published in January 2014 and ultimately became the basis for the formation of the monetary policy committee, which will soon become a reality.

There are also a few research papers that he has authored over the years.

Given this, Patel’s thinking on various issues will become clearer as we go along and as he interacts more with the media in the days to come. While he may have managed to avoid the media in his role as the deputy governor that surely won’t be possible once he takes over as the RBI governor. He may not make as many speeches as his predecessor did (which is something that the Modi government probably already likes about him), but there is no way he can avoid interacting with the press, after every monetary policy statement, and giving interviews now and then.

Given this, the policy continuity argument being made across the media about Patel being appointed the RBI governor, is rather flaky. There isn’t enough evidence going around to say the same. The only thing that can perhaps be said from what Patel has written over the years is that his views on inflation seem to be in line with Rajan’s thinking. Also, some of the stuff that is being cited was written many years back. And people do change views over the years. There is no way of knowing if Patel has.

The Challenges for the new RBI governor

While, his thinking on various issues may not be very clear, it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out what his bigger challenges are. Take a look at the following chart. It maps the inflation as measured by the consumer price index since August 2014.

Inflation as measured by the consumer price index

The chart tells us very clearly that the inflation as measured by the consumer price index is at its highest level since August 2014. In August 2014, the inflation was at 7.03 per cent. In July 2016, it came in at 6.07 per cent.

Why has the rate of inflation as measured by the consumer price index, spiked up? The answer lies in the following chart which shows the rate of food inflation since August 2014.

 

Food Inflation

 

Like the inflation as measured by the consumer price index, the rate of food inflation is also at its highest level since August 2014. In August 2014, the food inflation was at 8.93 per cent. In July 2014, the food inflation was at 8.35 per cent. Food products make for a greater chunk of the consumer price index.

What this tells us is that the inflation as measured by the consumer price index spikes up when the food inflation spikes up. And that is the first order effect of high food inflation. This becomes clear from the following chart.

Inflation

But what can the RBI do about food inflation?

There is not much that the RBI can do about food inflation. And this is often offered as a reason, especially by the corporate chieftains and those close to the government (not specifically the Modi government but any government), for the RBI to cut the repo rate. The repo rate is the rate of interest that the RBI charges commercial banks when they borrow overnight from it. It communicates the policy stance of the RBI and tells the financial system at large, which way the central bank expects interest rates to go in the days to come.

The trouble is that things are not as simplistic as the corporate chieftains make them out to be. While, the RBI has no control over food inflation (and not that the government does either), it can control the second-order effects of food inflation.

As D Subbarao, former governor of the RBI, writes in his new book Who Moved My Interest Rate?-Leading the Reserve Bank of India Through Five Turbulent Years: “What about the criticism that monetary policy is an ineffective tool against supply shocks? This is an ageless and timeless issue. I was not the first governor to have had to respond to this, and I know I won’t be the last. My response should come as no surprise. In a $1500 per capita economy-where food is a large fraction of the expenditure basket-food inflation quickly spills into wage inflation and therefore into core inflation…When food has such a dominant share in the expenditure basket, sustained food inflation is bound to ignite inflationary expectations.”

Given this, the entire logic of the RBI cutting the repo rate because it cannot manage food inflation is basicallybunkum. Food inflation inevitably translates into overall inflation and that is something that the RBI has some control over, through the repo rate. If this is not addressed, second order effects of food inflation can lead to an even higher inflation as measured by the consumer price index. And this will hurt a large section of the population.

As Subbarao writes: “The Reserve Bank of India cannot afford to forget that there is a much larger group that prioritizes lower inflation over a faster growth. This is the large majority of public comprising of several millions of low-and-middle-income households who are hurt by rising prices and want the Reserve Bank to maintain stable prices. Inflation, we must note, is a regressive tax; the poorer you are, the more you are hurt by rising prices.”

But one cannot expect corporate chieftains who have taken on a huge amount of debt over the years, in order to further their ambitions, to understand this rather basic point. Given this, this hasn’t stopped them from demanding a repo rate cut from the new RBI governor. (You can read more about it here). The government has also made it clear over and over again that it wants the RBI to cut the repo rate. Given that, it is the biggest borrower, this is not surprising. Since January 2015, the RBI has cut the repo rate by 150 basis points to 6.5 per cent. One basis point is one hundredth of a percentage.

As Subbarao writes: “The narrative of our growth-inflation debate is also shaped by what I call the ‘decibel capacity’. The trade and the industry sector, typically a borrower of money, prioritizes growth over inflation, and lobbies for a softer interest-rate regime.”

The people who invest in deposits unlike the corporate chieftains are not in a position to lobby. But it is important that the RBI does not forget about them.

Hence, it is important that people are offered a positive real rate of interest on their fixed deposits. The real rate of interest is essentially the difference between the nominal rate of interest offered on fixed deposits and the prevailing rate of inflation. A positive real rate of interest is important in order to encourage people to save and build the domestic savings of India, which have been falling over the last few years.

This was one of the bigger mistakes made during the second-term of the Manmohan Singh government.

As outgoing governor Raghuram Rajan told NDTV in an interview sometime back “When inflation was 9 per cent they [i.e. depositors] were getting 9 per cent. This meant earning nothing in real terms and losing everything in inflation.”

This wasn’t the case for many years. As Rajan explained in a June 2016 speech: “In the last decade, savers have experienced negative real rates over extended periods as CPI has exceeded deposit interest rates. This means that whatever interest they get has been more than wiped out by the erosion in their principal’s purchasing power due to inflation. Savers intuitively understand this, and had been shifting to investing in real assets like gold and real estate, and away from financial assets like deposits.”

Inflation up, savings down

Take a look at the following chart clearly shows that between 2008 and 2013, the real rate of return on deposits was negative. In fact, it was close to 4 per cent in the negative territory in 2010.

 

Inflation as measured by the consumer price index

 

High inflation essentially ensured that India’s gross domestic savings have been falling over the last decade. Between 2007-2008 and 2013-2014, the rate of inflation as measured by the consumer price index, averaged at around 9.5 per cent per year. In 2007-2008, the gross domestic savings peaked at 36.8 per cent of the GDP. Since then they have been falling and in 2013-2014, the gross domestic savings were at 30.5 per cent of the GDP, having improved from a low of 30.1 per cent of GDP in 2012-2013.

This fall in gross domestic savings has come about because of a dramatic fall in household financial savings. Household financial savings is essentially a term used to refer to the money invested by individuals in fixed deposits, small savings schemes of India Post, mutual funds, shares, insurance, provident and pension funds, etc. A major part of household financial savings in India is held in the form of bank fixed deposits and post office small savings schemes.

Between 2005-2006 and 2007-2008, the average rate of household financial savings stood at 11.6 per cent of the GDP. In 2009-2010, it rose to 12 per cent of GDP. By 2011-2012, it had fallen to 7 per cent of the GDP. The household financial savings in 2014-2015, stood at 7.5 per cent of GDP. Chances of this figure having improved in 2015-2016 are pretty good given that a real rate of return on deposits is on offer for savers, after many years.

If a programme like Make in India has to take off, India’s household financial savings in particular and overall gross domestic savings in general, need to be on solid ground. And that is only going to happen if people are encouraged to save by ensuring that they make a real rate of return on their deposits. In fact, if India needs to grow at 10 per cent per year, an estimate made in Vijay Joshi’s book India’s Long Road suggests that the savings rate will have to be around 41 per cent of the GDP.

As Rakesh Mohan and Munish Kapoor of the International Monetary Fund write in a research paper titledPressing the Indian Growth Accelerator: Policy Imperatives: “In the near future, we expect financial savings to be restored to the earlier 10 per cent level, as inflation subsides, monetary conditions stabilize and households begin to obtain positive real interest rates on their deposits and other financial savings. Financial savings are then projected to increase gradually to around 13 per cent by 2027-32.”

And how is this going to happen? As Mohan and Kapoor point out: “A sustained reduction in inflation that leads to the maintenance of low nominal interest rates, but positive real interest rates, will help in restoring corporate profitability, while encouraging household savings towards financial instruments.”

The point is that a scenario where a positive real rate of return is available to depositors is very important. But is that how things will continue to be? Take a look at the following chart, which plots the repo rate and the consumer price inflation.

Inflation as measured by the consumer price index

As can be seen from the graph, the difference between the repo rate (the orange line) and overall inflation (i.e. inflation as measured by the consumer price index) has narrowed considerably and is at its lowest level in the last two years. This effectively means that the real rate of return on fixed deposits offered by banks has been falling as the rate of inflation has been going up. (Ideally, I should have taken the average rate of return on fixed deposits instead of the repo rate, but that sort of data is not so easily available. Hence, I have taken the repo rate as a proxy).

This is not a good sign on several counts. In a country like India where deposits are a major way through which people save, high inflation leading to lower real rates of interest which effectively means that they are not saving as much as they should. This is something that most people do not seem to understand.

The economist Michael Pettis makes a very interesting point about the relationship between interest rate and consumption in case of China. As he writes in The Great Rebalancing: “Most Chinese savings, at least until recently, have been in the form of bank deposits…Chinese households, in other words, should feel richer when the deposit rate rises and poorer when it declines, in which case rising rates should be associated with rising, not declining, consumption.”

Now replace China with India in the above paragraph and the logic remains exactly the same. Given that a large portion of the Indian household financial savings are invested in bank deposits, any fall in interest rates (as the corporate chieftains regularly demand) should make people feel poorer and in the process negatively impact consumption, at least from the point of savers.

Given this, the biggest challenge for Urjit Patel will be to not taken in by all these demands for lower interest rates and ensure that the deposit holders get a real rate of interest on their fixed deposits.

Further, it is unlikely that he will cut the repo rate given that as the monetary policy committee comes in place, the RBI needs to maintain a rate of inflation between 2 to 6 per cent. In July 2016, the rate of inflation was over 6 per cent.

The column originally appeared in Vivek Kaul’s Diary on August 22, 2016