CBN Slashes Interest Rate To 23%
Nigeria’s apex Bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has slashed its benchmark interest rate from 26.5 per cent to 23 per cent.
CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, disclosed this at the end of the Monetary Policy Committee’s 307th meeting in Abuja.
Cardoso noted that the committee examined recent trends in the global and domestic economic environment, considered emerging risks to the outlook and evaluated their potential for monetary policy.
“The Committee decided as follows: reset the monetary policy rate at 23 per cent,” he said.
The latest reduction comes after the MPC kept the rate unchanged at its two preceding meetings, following a 50-basis-point cut in February 2026.
The CBN governor said the Committee also recalibrated the standing facility corridor to +50 and -300 basis points around the MPR, while retaining the Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR) at 45 per cent for deposit money banks, 16 per cent for merchant banks, and 75 per cent for non-TSA public sector deposits.
He said the Committee decided to reset the MPR and recalibrate the policy corridor as an important operational realignment aimed at strengthening monetary policy transmission and enforcing the primacy of the rate.
“The MPC emphasized that the duration of the corridor does not constitute a change in the current monetary policy stance, but rather an operational reset to enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy and support the transition to an inflation targeting framework.
“Members are of the view that the macroeconomic environment remains supportive of such a recalibration without undermining the disinflation process,” he said.
Cardoso said members noted the bank’s ongoing repair of the monetary policy implementation framework, stressing that transaction-based operational benchmark proved the transparency of money market operations.
“The committee therefore considered the reset of the MPR and recalibration of the corridor appropriate to better align the monetary policy implementation framework with market realities.
“This would strengthen policy transmission and restore the MPR as a principal signal of monitor.”
MPC emphasized that the recalibration represents an operational realignment of the framework and should not in itself be construed as a change in the underlying policy stance.
