0: When “No Change” Is the Actual Headline
The number of the day is 0; because interest rates stayed exactly where they are. SARB held the repo rate at 6.75% and kept prime at 10.25%, choosing restraint at a moment when many borrowers were hoping the cutting cycle would keep flowing.
Francis Herd frames the hold as a “pause in the party,” and that framing matters. A pause doesn’t mean the music ends; it means the DJ is watching the room. The central bank is looking at inflation progress and asking a harder question: is it stable enough to risk more cuts without getting punished later?
Why the pause now?
In the episode, the key concern is services inflation; still hovering above where policymakers want it. Even when headline inflation cools, services inflation can stay stubborn because it’s tied to everyday costs that don’t drop easily. That stickiness makes central banks nervous, because it can keep inflation “higher for longer” even when the rest of the basket looks calm.
Administered prices: the stuff you can’t dodge
Francis then brings it home: electricity, municipal charges, and other administered prices. The point isn’t academic; it’s practical. If electricity pricing rises faster than inflation, it can push costs through the economy and complicate the case for further rate cuts. The wider regulatory context around electricity tariff calculation errors and corrections adds to that uncertainty, which is exactly what makes a central bank hesitate.
The split decision tells you this wasn’t simple
One of the clearest signals in the broader MPC outcome is that this decision wasn’t unanimous. A split vote suggests the committee sees the same data but weighs the risks
differently; which usually means the next move depends heavily on what shifts first: inflation expectations, administered prices, or the global risk environment.
Global risk: why “local inflation” isn’t the only input
The episode also widens the lens to global market uncertainty; including correction risk and the idea that AI optimism may be outpacing real-world productivity gains. Whether or not one agrees with that framing, the underlying policy reality is familiar: when global conditions are jumpy, central banks tend to move slower, because a shock can travel quickly through currencies, inflation expectations, and financial conditions.
The takeaway
0 looks like nothing. But in monetary policy, “no change” is often the moment the bank is buying time; waiting to see if inflation settles cleanly, or if electricity pricing and global volatility pull it back up. For households, it means borrowing costs don’t ease further today; but it also means the next decision will be shaped by what happens between now and the next meeting.