The South African Reserve Bank is seen keeping its key repo rate steady at 8.25% when its Monetary Policy Committee concludes its last scheduled meeting of 2023 on Thursday. The stars are aligned for a hold -- but not a cut -- with the rand near four-month highs amid expectations that US interest rates have peaked.

There will be no early Christmas gift from the SA Reserve Bank (Sarb) on Thursday in the form of a rate cut to give Black Friday shoppers a liquidity lift. Nor will the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) be a Grinch and raise borrowing costs by hiking rates. It is expected to hold its repo rate at 8.25%, which will keep the prime lending rate at 11.75%.

That is the overwhelming view of economists and the markets ahead of the SA Reserve Bank's last scheduled MPC meeting of the year, which concludes on Thursday. A Reuters poll of 20 economists was unanimous in forecasting a hold, mirroring the Bloomberg consensus.

"The rand has strengthened notably since the previous meeting in September, while international oil prices have also come down considerably, boding well for South Africa's near-term inflation outlook. Our base case is for the Sarb to stay put this week," Jee-A van der Linde, senior economist at Oxford Economics Africa, said in a preview of the MPC.

The rand rallied last week to its highest levels against the dollar since the end of July after US inflation data raised market expectations that the US Federal Reserve's tightening cycle had...