The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reduced its benchmark interest rate from 26.5 per cent to 23 per cent, in a major adjustment to the country’s monetary policy framework.

CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, announced the decision on Tuesday at the conclusion of the Monetary Policy Committee’s 307th meeting in Abuja.

Cardoso said the committee reviewed developments in the global and domestic economies, emerging risks and their potential implications for monetary policy before arriving at the decision.

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“The Committee decided as follows: reset the monetary policy rate at 23 per cent,” the governor said.

The latest reduction follows two consecutive MPC meetings in which the rate was left unchanged. It also comes after the committee cut the rate by 50 basis points in February 2026.

As part of the latest decision, the MPC also recalibrated the standing facility corridor to +50 and -300 basis points around the MPR.

However, the committee retained the Cash Reserve Requirement (CRR) at 45 per cent for deposit money banks, 16 per cent for merchant banks and 75 per cent for non-TSA public sector deposits.

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According to Cardoso, the adjustment to the MPR and the policy corridor represents an operational realignment aimed at improving monetary policy transmission and reinforcing the role of the benchmark rate.

“The MPC emphasised that the duration of the corridor does not constitute a change in the current monetary policy stance, but rather an operational reset to enhance the effectiveness of monetary policy and support the transition to an inflation-targeting framework,” he said.

The governor said MPC members considered the prevailing macroeconomic environment supportive of the recalibration without undermining efforts to bring inflation down.

He added that the committee had taken note of the CBN’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its monetary policy implementation framework.

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Cardoso said the committee also considered transaction-based operational benchmarks important for improving transparency in money market operations.

He explained that resetting the MPR and recalibrating the corridor would help align the monetary policy framework more closely with prevailing market conditions.

According to him, the changes are expected to strengthen policy transmission and restore the MPR’s role as the principal signal of monetary policy.

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The MPC stressed that the recalibration should be understood as an operational adjustment to the framework and not, by itself, as a change in the underlying direction of monetary policy.

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