Cape town July 21 2022: South Africa’s central bank surprised financial markets by delivering its biggest increase in borrowing costs in almost two decades.
The monetary policy committee raised the repurchase interest rate to 5.5% from 4.75%, Governor Lesetja Kganyago said Thursday in an online briefing. It’s the biggest hike since September 2002 and marks the first time that the central bank has moved by 75 basis points — in either direction — since the turn of the century.
Only seven of 20 economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted the move, with the rest seeing a smaller 50 basis-point increase. Of the five members on the panel, three voted for the 75 basis-point increase, one preferred a 100-basis-point hike and the other 50 basis points.
