Central Bank of Nigeria holds rates and pushes for lending boost

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s monetary policy committee has unanimously voted to retain the policy rate at 13.5%, as it said key macroeconomic indicators were “trending in the right direction”.

The CBN’s governor, Godwin Emefiele, announced the hold on July 23, while reiterating the bank’s goal to continue pushing inflation down from its June level of 11.22% into single digits.

The governor also outlined plans for regular reviews to ensure more loans are made, saying to journalists that “after September 30 we are going to begin a month-by-month monitoring and then prescription of loan deposit ratio for the banks”.

Earlier this month, the CBN announced that banks must maintain a minimum loan-to-deposit ratio of 60%, in a bid to increase lending and stimulate economic growth.

Emefiele seems to be continuing a protectionist trend for the CBN, as he also said that the bank would ban access to foreign exchange to imports of milk at an indeterminate point in the future. The bank had previously banned access to foreign exchange for 41 different items in 2015.