QCB revises up interest rates by 0.25% to 0.5%

QCB revises up interest rates by 0.25% to 0.5%

QCB revises up interest rates by 0.25% to 0.5%

May 05 2022 08:53 PM



Taking cue from the US Federal Reserve, the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) has hiked its key reference rates by 0.25% to 0.5% in view of the riyal's fixed exchange parity with the greenback.

The QCB decided to raise the deposit rate by 50 basis points to 1.50% and repurchase (repo) rate by 0.5%. The central bank also decided to raise the lending rate by 25 basis points to 2.75%.

All Gulf countries have their currencies pegged to the US dollar, except Kuwait, which pegs the Kuwaiti dinar to a basket of currencies that includes the dollar.

The rate hike follows the moves by the Fed, which on Wednesday voted unanimously to increase the benchmark rate by a half percentage point. The biggest interest rate increase in more than two decades comes as part of measures to tackle fast rising prices.

The repo rate is the interest rate for one night, or a very short period of time for the process of buying and selling assets, such as government bonds from the central bank, where dealers purchase government bonds for a certain period and then sell them to investors for