With inflation braking, the South African Reserve Bank looks set to keep its key repo rate on hold at 8.25%, and the prime lending rate at 11.75%, when its Monetary Policy Committee wraps its next three-day meeting on Thursday, 21 September.

A Reuters poll of 30 economists was almost unanimous, with 29 forecasting the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will hold rates and one predicting a 50-basis point hike. The poll also forecast 75 basis points of cuts next year.

This would take the prime rate to 11% next year, bringing some relief to hard-pressed South African consumers while chipping away at one of the many obstacles to economic growth.

"The fact that inflation expectations came down most recently suggests that the Sarb's hawkish rhetoric seems to be working. Inflation expectations and headline inflation have begun to move in the right direction, and the Sarb is likely to stay put at its September meeting," Jee-A van der Linde, senior economist at Oxford Economics Africa, told Daily Maverick.

South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) governor Lesetja Kganyago has repeatedly unfurled the talons of a hawk, maintaining that the tightening cycle has not peaked and that the MPC stands ready to hike again to contain inflation.

Still, after raising rates by 475 basis points between November 2021 and May 2023, the Sarb - which held rates steady in July - has room to keep its finger off the tightening trigger.

The Consumer Price Index...