Interest rates held steady for 12months

After a monetary policy committee meeting held yesterday, the BoB’s Head of Communications, Andrew Sesinyi announced that the bank rate would be maintained at 7.5 percent. This means commercial banks will also keep their prime lending rates at 9 percent. This marks a full year of stagnant interest rates as the bank last the yardstick bank rate in December 2013.

In a statement released recently, BoB said the current state of the economy and both the domestic and external economic outlook, as well as the inflation forecast suggest that the monetary policy stance is consistent with maintaining inflation within the bank’s medium term objective range of 3 – 6 percent. “Hence, the Monetary Policy Committee decided to maintain the Bank Rate at 7.5 percent,” read the statement.