How has Budget 2025 impacted Bank Nifty?

February 1, 2025: The Budget Day was closely watched by crores of enthusiastic investors and traders across India. The bearish sentiment prevalent in the Indian financial markets for the past few months has eroded huge amounts of wealth, making regulatory intervention all the more necessary. What better occasion than the day the Union Budget is presented?

Let us carefully analyze the impact of regulatory changes on the performance of one of the most popular benchmark indices, Bank Nifty.

What is Bank Nifty?

Bank Nifty is an Indian stock market index that consists of India’s most liquid and large capitalization banking stocks. It consists of 12 private and public sector banks such as SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, etc. The index value is calculated using a free float capitalization method and was launched on 15 September 2003.

Before Budget 2025

After making a high of around 54,467 on 26 September 2024, Bank Nifty experienced a sharp decline in the next few days and made a low of around 50,194 on 7 October 2024. This sharp decline was majorly attributed to the announcement of the Chinese stimulus package. In November, China announced a $1.4 trillion debt package to support economic growth. Furthermore, a 25 bps rate cut in key lending rates and a 50 bps cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratio marked the most significant attempt to revive the Chinese economy since the COVID-19 pandemic. This caused the FIIs to shift their investments from India to China, expecting China to grow at a faster pace. 

In response, the Reserve Bank of India reduced the cash reserve ratio from 4.5% to 4%, thereby providing additional liquidity of around ₹1.16 lakh crore in the Indian banking system. However, this wasn’t enough to arrest the slide in Bank Nifty, and the index further declined to a low of 47,844 on 27 January 2025.

Lead-up to the Budget 2025

On 27 January 2025, the Reserve Bank of India announced an elaborate plan to inject liquidity into the banking system that had the following highlights:

• Open Market Operations (OMOs) of Government of India securities worth ₹60,000 crores.
• 56-day Variable Repo Rate (VRR) auction for an amount of ₹50,000 crore.
• USD/INR Buy/Sell Swap auction for an amount of $5 billion for a tenor of 6 months.

The regulatory steps drew an enthusiastic response from the investors, and the Bank Nifty rose from a low of 47,844 to 49,857 between 27 January and 31 January 2025, a 2,013 point rise in 5 days.

Budget Day

One of the key features of Budget 2025 was to waive income tax for those earning up to ₹12 lakh. It was a substantial increase from the previous limit of ₹7 lakhs under the new tax regime. This move came as a major tax relief for the middle class, potentially impacting the financial markets in the following ways:

• Reduction in tax liability can cause the market participants to invest more in the financial markets.
• An increase in disposable incomes results in a rise in consumption, which will be beneficial for Indian banks as businesses look to expand operations.
• Some citizens might be hesitant to invest due to volatile market conditions and may deposit the extra funds in banks, allowing banks to lend more and earn more.

Due to the above-mentioned factors, the Bank Nifty index rose from 49,587 to a high of 50,522 on 5 February 2025.

What’s Next?

As market participants eagerly await the decisions of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting scheduled to be held on 7 February 2025, many experts and financial institutions expect a 25 bps decline in the repo rate, which will be a positive development for the Indian stock market and can cause Bank Nifty to rise further.