Indian shares rise as banks gain on RBI forex swap facility

Banks led gains in Indian shares on Tuesday after the RBI detailed a concessional forex swap facility for overseas borrowings, while a pause in Israel-Iran hostilities boosted risk appetite.

The benchmark Nifty 50 was up 0.36% at 23,205.2, while the BSE Sensex gained 0.35% to 73,776.79, as of 9:46 a.m. IST.

Thirteen of the 16 major sectors logged gains. The small-caps and mid-caps indexes rose about 1% each.

Banks and financials rose about 1.2% and 1%, respectively, after the RBI allowed lenders to access a concessional swap facility for overseas borrowings with a minimum maturity of three years.

“RBI’s concessional swap facility is a structural level to bridge the loan-to-deposit ratio gap for financials, lower incremental cost of deposits and improve net interest margins,” said Kunal Shah, analyst at Citi Research.

Other Asian markets rose 2.5%, partially rebounding from the previous session’s steep drop.

Iran and Israel said on Monday they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal from U.S. President Donald Trump, though Tehran warned it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to hit Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Brent crude futures were down around $93.3 per barrel, compared with $97 ahead of the Indian market close on Monday.

“Global equities are seeing some recovery following signs of pause in Israel-Iran hostilities, but traders remain cautious due to lingering Middle East uncertainty,” said Aakash Shah, technical research analyst at Choice Broking.

“The immediate trading range for Nifty is seen between 23,000 and 23,300 and a decisive move beyond either side is likely to determine the next directional trend,” Shah said.

Among individual stocks, heating equipment maker JNK India jumped 9.6% after securing a UAE order worth 1 billion rupees to 3 billion rupees.

Vaccine and drugmaker Panacea Biotech climbed 11% after launching the Denstar project to develop a dengue vaccine specifically for Africa.