THE African Development Bank says the range in lending rates quoted by banks remain wide across the sector and more measures are required to address funding and interest rate challenges facing the economy. AfDB contends that nominal lending rates quoted by individual commercial banks ranging from 6 percent to 35 percent and 13 percent to 25 percent for merchant banks, remain too wide across banks.
In a bid to reduce lending rates the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe engaged banking institutions to whittle them to a maximum 12,5 percent per annum above a bank's weighted average cost of funding. RBZ said lending rates averaged 22 percent last year.
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