Why CBN Retained Benchmark Interest Rate At 27.5%

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has retained the monetary policy rate (MPR), the benchmark interest rate in the country, at 27.50 percent.

This was announced by the CBN Governor, Dr Olayemi Cardoso, at the end of the 299th MPC meeting at CBN headquarters in Abuja on Thursday, 20th February 2025.

The decision by CBN to retain the MPR came after the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Tuesday that, following a rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Nigeria’s inflation rate decreased from 34.8 per cent in December 2024 to 24.48 per cent in January 2025.

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This is the first time the MPC had retained the MPR since it started raising it in May 2022. The committee has increased the interest rate 15 times in almost three years.

The apex bank had adopted the monetary policy tightening stance as a way of tackling inflation in the country.

According to Cardoso, the MPC retained the cash reserve ratio (CRR) at 50 percent, and liquidity ratio at 30 percent.

The CBN governor said the committee noted with satisfaction that recent macroeconomic developments such as stability of the foreign exchange are expected to positively impact price dynamics in the near to medium term.