Advertise your job vacancies

Subscribe & Follow

Jobs

Freelance Meta Ads Specialist Johannesburg
Dealer Relationship Consultant Cape Town
Motor Accounts Handler Cape Town
Debtors Administrator Sandton
Data Science Lead Cape Town
Data Engineer George
Actuarial Pricing Analyst Cape Town
Reserving Actuarial Analyst Cape Town
ML Engineer George
Insurance Accountant George

Prime interest rate may soon be phased out, says SA Reserve Bank governor

South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) Governor Lesetja Kganyago said on Wednesday, 21 January 2026 that the end of the prime lending rate — which stands at 350 basis points above the central bank’s key repo rate — may be nigh.

By Ed Stoddard

22 Jan 2026

Source: Reuters. South African Reserve Bank's Lesetja Kganyago.

Bloomberg recently reported that the Sarb was reviewing the prime rate, and Kganyago said in an interview with NewzRoom Afrika at the World Economic Forum in Davos that “the most natural outcome would be that we just get rid of prime”.

“We would like to have much more transparency, so that consumers know what is actually going on,” Kganyago told the news channel.

The 350 basis point gap between the repo or monetary policy rate and the prime rate has been fixed since 2001. Currently, the repo rate is 6.75% and the prime rate is 10.25%. Lenders use it as a baseline depending on the credit record of borrowers and their perceived ability to repay.

Source: Daily Maverick

Daily Maverick is a unique blend of news, information, analysis and opinion delivered from our newsrooms in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. There are many ways to describe exactly what we do (and for the price of a cup of coffee we’re capable of talking your ears off about it), but the best way to understand the end result is to experience it. Every part of Daily Maverick is free-to-air and no payment is required, although free registration is required for a small subset of functions and pages.

Daily Maverick is run by an independently owned, private company with no affiliation to any other media group (or political party or religious organisation.) Follow Daily Maverick on Twitter at @dailymaverick.

Go to: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/