Africa-Press – Malawi. The country’s commercial banks have raised their base lending interest rate, also called reference rate, by 1.3 percentage points to 24.9 percent, effective Thursday.
The reference rate is the benchmark which commercial banks use when charging other interests such as interest rate when a person or business wants to borrow money. This is in reaction to Monday’s upward adjustment of the policy rate by 200 basis points to 26 percent by the Reserve Bank of Malawi.
“We wish to inform you that due to the recent upward adjustment of the policy rate, the reference rate for February 2024 is 24.90 percent from 23.60 percent in January 2024. This rate is effective Thursday, 8th February 2024,” one of the published statements from the commercial banks reads. This means that borrowers could be charged a minimum of 31 percent interest on loans, depending on the lender and clients risk profile.
John KapitoConsumers Association of Malawi Executive Director John Kapito said the increase on bank interest rates have a serious negative impact on economic growth prospects.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Chamber Executive Director James Chiutsi said the development will deter SMEs from accessing finances to maintain or grow their businesses.
“This is devastating. We operate in an economy that does not have development banks tailored to SMEs.
“We rely on these commercial banks to stabilise or grow our businesses and we have been complaining about high interest rates. This increase is a complete killer to SMEs,” Chiutsi said. Bankers Association of Malawi (Bam) immediate past president MacFussy Kawawa said revision of the rates was inevitable.
“Currently, the reference rate is determined as a weighted average of several variables including the policy rate. The others are: average Treasury bill rate, interbank rate and average savings rate.
“So, any change in these input variables will trigger a change in the reference rate, which Bam publishes for application by banks from the beginning of every month,” Kawawa said.
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