India o/n rates steady on cash; rev repo amount down

MUMBAI, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Indian inter-bank call money rates were steady on Friday on surplus cash with banks, and traders said banks parked lesser amount at the RBI reverse repo auction probably because credit offtake has started picking up.

At 2:30 p.m, the three-day money was at 3.25/30 percent, unchanged from Thursday's close.

"Credit is definitely picking up," said Imran Abrar, dealer at Bank of Rajasthan.

Traders also said banks were mostly off a strategy of borrowing in the collateralised market for an arbitrage between the RBI reverse repo window as month-end redemption pressures on mutual funds was holding the CBLO rates steady near 3 percent.

At its policy review on Tuesday, the RBI cut its full-year forecast for non-food credit growth to 18.0 percent from 20 percent and said bank credit growth continues to be sluggish.

K.C. Chakrabarty, a central bank deputy governor said on Wednesday that lending by Indian banks would pick up. [ID:nBMA006269]

Banks parked 845.70 billion rupees with the central bank on Friday compared with 963.30 billion rupees on Thursday and 1.09 trillion rupees on Wednesday. (Reporting by Boby Michael; Editing by Sunil Nair)