As inflation increases in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday 24th of May increased its interest rate. With this, depositors are expecting banks to raise interest rates on savings accounts in order to ease the impact of the effect of inflation.
This is the 7th time the interest rate has been increased consecutively by the apex bank to combat inflation as they claim that raising the interest rate has helped in subduing the inflation which would have risen to about 32% by now.
As of March this year, inflation had risen to 6.13% as against the value recorded in March 2022 and presently it now stands at 22.22% according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.
In the just concluded Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, the MPC increased the standard interest rate for the 3rd time this year by 50 basis points to 18.5%.
However, there is good news as a host of Banks like Zenith Bank, First Bank, FCMB, and Fidelity are among the banks that announced a new interest rate on savings accounts. Access Bank, in particular, announced in an email to customers that it will with immediate effect, reflect the new CBN interest rate on savings accounts
