Ample liquidity and banks not fully responding to policy signals, might prompt the Reserve Bank to announce a benign monetary policy in its annual review on April 21, bankers have said.

"Rather than cutting the key rates further, they (RBI) may wait for the full transmission of already taken monetary and fiscal steps into the system. I do not expect a further cut in CRR at this point," Bank of Baroda Chairman and Managing Director M D Mallya told PTI here.

RBI Governor, D Subbarao told bankers recently in clear terms that they were yet to respond to the desired extend to the policy signals by lowering lending rates.

Reserve Bank had slashed its Cash Reserve Ratio, the amount banks need to park with the apex bank, and repo rate - the rate at which it lends to banks, to five percent in March. It also reduced the reverse repo rate - at which RBI accepts short-term funds from banks, to 3.5 percent.

Some banks have responded positively but are yet to cut lending rates as much as the policy warranted, Subarao had said, implying that banks should lower rates further before the apex bank contemplates further reduction in key rates.

But bankers expect a hike in the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) by one to two percent in view of large government borrowing to pump-prime the economy. This large borrowing puts a burden on public-sector banks and RBI may hike SLR to route a portion of the excess liquidity to fund the borrowing requirements, Uco Bank CMD S K Goel said.

"Given that liquidity is sufficient in the banking system, RBI may not find it necessary to slash CRR this time. We can expect a one to two percent increase in SLR," Goel said.

SLR is the percentage of amount banks are required to park with the apex bank against Government Securities. Presently SLR stands at 24 percent.

A similar view was expressed by Citi Bank's Chief Financial Officer, Abhijit Sen who expected no changes in RBI key-rates in the annual monetary policy but said the Reserve Bank was likely to announce some refinancing facility for banks.

"RBI is likely to announce some refinancing schemes against the NDTLs of banks to meet their liquidity requirements. I do not expect a reduction in CRR and short-term lending and borrowing rates," Sen said.

The apex bank may also look at the option of hiking the SLR portion by upto two percent to mop up money from the system for the Government borrowing, Sen said.

IDBI Bank Chief Financial Officer, R K Bansal, however, disagreed with this view saying that banks were already keeping SLR, much above the mandatory 24 percent, which makes a hike in SLR unwarranted.