The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has increased the country’s interest rate by 25 basis points, bringing it to 27.50% in November 2024, up from 27.25% in September.
CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso announced the decision during a press briefing on Tuesday following the 298th MPC meeting held in Abuja.
“The Committee was unanimous in its agreement to raise the monetary policy rate by 25 basis points to 27.50 per cent,” he said.
Cardoso noted that the decision to raise the country’s MPR is to tackle inflation, which stood at 33.87 percent in October 2024.
He also announced that the Cash Reserve Ratio was retained at 50 basis points, from 45 percent to 50 percent for deposit money banks and from 14 percent to 16 percent for merchant banks.
Also, the CBN governor said the committee retains the liquidity ratio at 30 percent and the asymmetric corridor at +500/-100 basis points around the MPR.
Similarly, Cardoso stated that the committee retained all other monetary policy decisions.
It was reported that the monetary policy measures the benchmark interest rate of the economy.
At its September meeting, the committee raised the MPR by 50bps to 27.25 percent, emphasizing concerns over core inflation, money supply growth, fiscal deficits, and food price pressures.
Although headline inflation was trending downward at the time of the last MPC meeting, core inflation remained elevated, driven by energy costs and other structural factors.
