The Ghana Reference Rate, a key benchmark used by commercial banks in setting lending rates, recorded a slight increase for November 2025.
Data from the Ghana Association of Banks shows the rate moved from 17.86% in October to 17.93% this month.
Industry sources told JoyBusiness that the uptick was driven by marginal increases in key variables, including the Treasury bill rate, which rose from 10.50% to 10.67%, and interbank rates, which inched up from 20.93% to 21%.
In October 2025, the GRR dropped by 2% from 19.86% in September. Earlier in the year, the rate stood at 29.72% in January, moved slightly to 29.96% in February, and declined steadily over six months to 19.67% in August.
Industry watchers linked the earlier 2% reduction to drops in inflation, Treasury bill rates, and the Bank of Ghana’s monetary policy rate, which has been cut by more than 600 basis points to 21.5%.
Impact
The rise in the GRR may influence lending costs, as the benchmark plays a central role in determining interest rates across commercial banks.
It is unclear whether this will cause credit costs to rise marginally in November, but analysts note that variable-rate borrowers are more likely to feel the impact than those on fixed-rate facilities.
The development comes at a time when businesses continue to struggle with access to credit due to tight liquidity conditions, following Bank of Ghana measures aimed at keeping inflation low.
According to the latest Monetary Policy Report, average lending rates have fallen from 26.6% to 24.2%.
The Bank of Ghana also notes that interest rates on money market instruments are declining in response to recent cuts in the policy rate.
For instance, the interest equivalent on the 91-day Treasury bill dropped from 13.4% at the end of July to 10.3% at the end of August 2025.
The Ghana Reference Rate
The GRR was introduced in 2017 by the Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Association of Banks as a transparent benchmark for setting lending rates.
The maiden rate was 16.82% in April 2017.
The GRR emerged from a review of the old base rate model and now guides the determination of interest rates on all financial products across the banking sector.
