India's finance minister moved to reassure markets on Monday saying the government was trying to shield the economy from the global financial crisis.
The statement sparked a rally in the country's battered stock market and currency.
Shares of ICICI Bank, India's second largest lender, surged over 20 percent after the chief executive said deposits were safe. Concerns about ICICI's potential exposure to the global credit market turmoil has erased 70 percent of its market value this year.
Fears about the crisis, which has wrecked financial firms across Europe and the United States, has gripped Indian markets, driving interbank lending rates to a 19-month high on Friday as liquidity dried up and banks shrank from dealing with each other.
Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram appeared to address some of those concerns when he said the government, the central bank and the stock market regulator were coordinating on an hourly basis on a response to the crisis.
"We are working on more measures that will infuse liquidity, make credit intermediation smoother, and increase the confidence of depositors and investors," he told a news conference.
"We hope to be able to announce them shortly."
Interbank lending rates fell, helped by a central bank decision to cut the proportion of deposits banks must keep in reserve by 150 basis points to 7.5 percent, releasing about 600 billion rupees ($12.4 billion) for from Saturday.
Overnight cash rates were quoting at 9.75/10.00 percent on Monday, compared with Friday's close of 15.50-16.50 percent. "We are watching the situation carefully and we will respond swiftly according to the needs of the situation," Chidambaram said.
"Our banks are ready and willing to provide credit," he said. The 10-year bond yield was at 7.71 percent, below 7.75 percent earlier and down from Friday's close of 7.79 percent.
The rupee gained to 48.00 per dollar from 48.11/12 per dollar, boosted by state-run banks buying rupees on behalf of the central bank on Friday.
The stock market opened 3.3 percent higher on Monday, helped by gains elsewhere in Asia after regulators around the world announced a raft of new measures, from guaranteeing short-term debt to taking stakes in lenders, to shore up the ailing financial system.
"There have been unprecedented policy action around the world, including in India, and this has provided a short-term stability to the markets," said Amitabh Chakraborty, president of equities at Religare Securities.
"But the trend is still very uncertain and the fundamentals are not giving big conviction."
Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index surged 5.6 percent, its biggest one-day percentage gain in 11 years, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index climbed 3.2 percent after losing 16.2 percent last week.
India's stock benchmark tumbled 7.1 percent on Friday, as investors fearing global recession put shares around the world to the sword.
ICICI's shares fell 19.7 percent on Friday, their sharpest single day fall on record. Smaller private sector lender Axis Bank, one of the first to unveil results in the sector, reported a 77 percent jump in quarterly net profit to 4.0 billion rupees. The stock jumped 13.4 percent.
In a report early last month, Morgan Stanley put Axis Bank on a list of Asia-Pacific lenders with earnings most at risk from an economic downturn. - Reuters