CBN warns against borrowing money from loan sharks, as MPC retains monetary policy rate at 11.5%
Oru Leonard
The Central Bank of Nigeria has stated that individuals in need of funds don’t need to know anybody to collect loans from banks, and should desist from borrowing from loan sharks.
This was disclosed by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, while reading the communique of the first Monetary Policy Committee meeting of the year, on Tuesday, January 25, 2022.
The apex bank governor expressed his displeasure in the way loan sharks handle customers who default.
Meanwhile, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria on Tuesday, voted unanimously to retain the monetary policy rate at 11.5%, while keeping all other parameters constant.
According to Emefiele, the MPC, concluded that a HOLD stance remains desirable at this time, as this would indicate a conservative but cautious and consistent policy choice given the prevailing economic conditions and outlook, thus strengthening policy credibility and focus.
He said it also felt that a hold would signal MPC’s realisation of the fragility of the growth recovery and its sensitivity to emerging global and domestic uncertainties, hence the need to sustain the current policy trajectory.
“After a careful balancing of the benefits and downsides of each policy option, the MPC decided to hold all policy parameters constant; believing that a hold stance will enable the continued permeation of current policy measures in supporting the recorded growth recovery and further boost production and productivity, which would ultimately rein-in inflation in the short to medium term”, he stated.
The Committee decided by a unanimous vote to retain the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 11.5 per cent, the Asymmetric Corridor of +100/-700 basis points around the MPR; the CRR at 27.5 per cent; and the Liquidity Ratio at 30 per cent.
