What is CRR, Repo Rate and Reverse Repo Rate

CRR
Cash reserve Ratio (CRR) is the amount of funds that the banks have to keep with RBI. If RBI decides to increase the percent of this, the available amount with the banks comes down. RBI is using this method (increase of CRR rate), to drain out the excessive money from the banks.


Repo Rate
Whenever the banks have any shortage of funds they can borrow it from RBI. Repo rate is the rate at which our banks borrow rupees from RBI. A reduction in the repo rate will help banks to get money at a cheaper rate. When the repo rate increases borrowing from RBI becomes more expensive.

Reverse Repo Rate
Reverse Repo rate is the rate at which Reserve Bank of India (RBI) borrows money from banks. Banks are always happy to lend money to RBI since their money are in safe hands with a good interest. An increase in Reverse repo rate can cause the banks to transfer more funds to RBI due to this attractive interest rates. It can cause the money to be drawn out of the banking system.
Due to this fine tuning of RBI using its tools of CRR, Bank Rate, Repo Rate and Reverse Repo rate our banks adjust their lending or investment rates for common man.