The largest lender of the country, State Bank of India has announced a 25 basis point hike in its base rate. With this hike , loans from the lender are to get dearer by atleast this amount. The bank had already said that it would go for hike in base rate before the Reserve Bank of India announced the annual monetary policy for this fiscal.

With the leader taking this step, other banks are expected to follow suit.

The new base rate of SBI will come into effect from April 25, 2011. The base rate of the bank would now stand at 8.5%.

Also, the benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) of the bank has been raised to 13.25% now.

According to Union Bank chairman MV Nair, his bank take any kind of decision on interest rates after the monetary policy for this fiscal is announced by the apex bank.

"We will wait for the RBI policy," he said. PNB chief KR Kamath said: "We are watching the market situation and will probably take a decision after the RBI policy."