A bank-level analysis of interest rate pass-through in South Africa

Matthew Greenwood-Nimmo, Daan Steenkamp and Rossouw van Jaarsveld

Journal of Macroeconomics, 2024, vol. 82, issue C

Abstract: We study the pass-through of policy rate hikes and cuts to household and corporate lending and deposit interest rates in South Africa over the period January 2009 to December 2020. We show that rate hikes are typically passed through to mortgage interest rates completely while rate cuts are not. This asymmetry is more prevalent for household than corporate mortgages. Pass-through to household and corporate call deposit interest rates is typically complete, but cheque account interest rates are highly sticky and experience weak pass-through. Our results indicate that banks’ pass-through decisions often impose greater costs on households than firms, and may blunt the stimulatory effect of rate cuts by weakening their impact on debt servicing costs and the remuneration of deposit balances.

Keywords: Interest rate pass-through; Monetary policy transmission mechanism; Bank funding costs; Sign asymmetry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E43 E52 G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: A banklevel analysis of interest rate passthrough in South Africa (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jmacro:v:82:y:2024:i:c:s0164070424000545

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmacro.2024.103639

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