Nigeria Raises Interest Rate by 50 Basis Points to 18%

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) led monetary policy committee has raised the nation’s borrowing cost by another 50 basis points following a 500 basis points increase in 2022 to 18%.

The committee attributed its decision to the rising inflation rate and the need to contain price development around expectations of subsidy removal and other energy sources.

“These in the view of members, provides a compelling argument for an upward adjustment of the policy rate, albeit, less aggressively. The Committee, however, noted that the naira redesign and cash withdrawal limit policies have resulted in a sizeable reduction in Currency-Outside-Banks, indicating an expected improvement in the potency of monetary policy tools,” the minutes stated.

Another factor considered was the drop in capital importation and the impact of exchange rate pressure on domestic price levels.

The committee, therefore, called for policies to attract both portfolio and foreign direct investment to Nigeria.

It maintained optimism that, the continued progress made with the RT200 FX programme, Naira-4-dollar and
other policies targeted at attracting diaspora remittances, would continue to help improve accretion to the external reserves and improve liquidity in the foreign exchange market.

Members, however, remained aware of the ongoing challenges associated with the limits imposed on cash withdrawals in the face of frequent downtime in bank electronic transaction channels. The Committee thus called on Other Depository Corporations, online payment platforms, and other stakeholders to ensure that the prevailing incidence of network failures is overcome in the immediate and short term.

This would ensure that the Naira Redesign and Cash Withdrawal Limit Policies lead to an improved in-road of the CBN Cashless program and efficiency of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy.

Members, therefore, agreed to raise Monetary Policy Rate by 50 basis points, with ten members voting to raise the MPR by 50 basis points while one member voted to raise the MPR by 25 basis points and one member voted to hold the MPR. All members voted to keep all other parameters constant.