The 6 people in charge of interest rates in South Africa
The South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB’s) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) makes decisions on South Africa’s interest rates.
The MPC moves the repo rate to ensure that inflation can be contained in South Africa and the value of the rand is not destroyed.
Although the government sets the Reserve Bank’s inflation target (currently 3% to 6%), it is entirely independent and can set the repo rate to ensure inflation is kept at bay.
Raising the repo rate ensures that inflation is kept lower in four ways:
Firstly, it keeps costs down for borrowers with variable interest rate debt, including home and car loans. This encourages saving and discourages borrowing, which weakens demand and reduces price pressures.
A higher interest rate also strengthens the rand, improving returns on rand-based investments and lowering the prices of imported goods.
Raising rates impacts the mentality of consumers, with price and wage settlers having to factor this into their decisions, which reduces price and wage increases.
Higher interest rates impact the price of assets, such as house prices.
This reduces the wealth of asset owners and causes them to cut spending, which lowers price pressures.
With inflation dropping to 4.6% in July (the lowest figure in three years), the rand strengthened following the creation of the Government of National Unity (GNU). The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut rates this month.
The MPC is also widely expected to cut the repo rate from its 15-year high of 8.25%.
Nedbank, Standard Bank, Investec, Bank of America, and others believe that a 25 basis point cut will occur in September, followed by another 25 basis point cut in November.
Two of the six members of the MPC called for a 25 basis point cut in July, leading many to expect a cut to occur in September.
If a tie occurs, the SARB Governor’s vote is the decider. The MPC can add a seventh member to prevent a tie from occurring.
Lesetja Kganyago – Governor
Kganyago has been the Governor of the SARB since November 2014. He was reappointed for a five-year term in 2019 and again earlier this year.
Kganyago is the Chairperson of the Monetary Policy Committee and the Financial Stability Committee.
He served as the Deputy Governor of the SARB from 2011 until his promotion to Governor.
Before joining the SARB, Kganyago was Director-General of the National Treasury – trading fiscal policy for monetary policy.
He has an MSC in Economics from SOAS University of London and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Economics and Accounting from the University of South Africa. He has also studied various finance, economics, and management training courses.
Fundi Tshazibana – Deputy Governor and CEO of the Prudential Authority
Tshazibana was appointed Deputy Governor in 2019, having joined the SARB a year earlier as an Adviser to the Governor.
She is also the CEO of the Prudential Authority, which regulates banks, insurers, cooperative financial institutions, financial conglomerates and specific market infrastructures.
She is an economist who has worked for the National Treasury, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
She has a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) degree and a Master of Commerce degree in Economics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Dr Rashad Cassim – Deputy Governor
Cassim was appointed as Deputy Governor by the President in 2022.
Cassim oversees Financial Markets and the International Cluster, which deals with financial markets, international economic relations and policy, and legal services.
Before joining the SARB, Cassim worked as Deputy Director-General for economic statistics at Statistics SA. This included the responsibility for producing inflation and gross domestic product data.
Before that, he was a professor and Head of the School of Economics and Business Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. He also held several research and academic positions at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
He has a Master’s degree in Economic History and a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from UCT.
Dr Mampho Modise – Deputy Governor
Modise is the latest member of the Monetary Policy Committee, replacing Kuben Naidoo as Deputy Governor earlier this year.
She oversees the Financial Stability Cluster, which houses the newly established Corporation for Deposit Insurance (CODI), the Economic Statistics Department, the Risk Management and Compliance Department, and the Fintech Unit.
Before joining the SARB, she was the Deputy Director-General of Public Finance at the National Treasury, which is responsible for fiscal and financing monitoring and the evaluation of policy proposals across national departments.
She was also responsible for assessing the performance and oversight of public and state-owned entities.
She started her career at the SARB, becoming an intern in 2004 and later as an economist in the Economic Research Department until 2009.
She holds a BCom in Economics, BCom Honours in Econometrics, an MCom in Econometrics (cum laude) and a PhD in Economics, all of which come from the University of Pretoria.
Dr Chris Loewald – Head of Economic Research
Loewald became a member of the MPC in 2019, having worked at the SARB since 2011.
As the Head of the SARB’s economic research department, he oversees forecasting, global economic analysis, and the publication of the Monetary Policy Review.
He worked at the National Treasury for 13 years in various roles before joining the SARB.
He holds a Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in International Economics and European Studies from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Dr David Fowkes – Adviser to the Governors
Fowkes was appointed an Adviser to the Governors in December 2023 and joined the MPC one month later.
Before he was appointed an Adviser, he worked in the Financial Markets Department, where he worked on reforming the Monetary Policy Implementation Framework, which became operational in 2022.
Between 2013 and 2021, he worked in the Economic Research Department, where he edited the SARB’s flagship publication on monetary policy ‒ the biannual Monetary Policy Review.
Fowkes has a Master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.