MPC expected to announce its final interest rate decision for 2025

The South African Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is expected to announce its final interest rate decision for the year this afternoon.

At its last meeting in September the MPC kept the repo rate unchanged at 7%, while the prime lending rate also remained unchanged at 10.5%.

Today’s rate announcement comes after data released by Stats SA yesterday, showed that inflation accelerated from 3.4% in September to 3.6% in October 2025.

While some analysts expect the central bank to cut rates by 25-basis points, Chief Economist at Investec Annabel Bishop says the MPC is likely to keep rate on hold in an effort to allow inflation to decrease to the newly adopted 3% target.

“South Africa has seen inflation fall in the second half of last year, which means from a cyclical basis it pushes inflation up in the second half of this year. Looking forward, the South African Reserve Bank meets and is expected to potentially cut interest rates by 25 basis points, markets have a close to a 90% expectation of this.”

“However, the South African Reserve Bank has noted that it needs to keep real interest rates high in order to curb inflation and bring it back to the 3% target, as a consequence there’s no certainty that the reserve bank will cut interest rates. But the United States remains in an interest rate cutting cycle and further cuts from the US could stimulate further interest rate cuts from South Africa next year,” adds Bishop.