Bank Negara Malaysia holds rates in July

BNM stands pat for the sixth straight meeting: At its meeting on 9 July, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) decided to maintain the overnight policy rate at 2.75%, where it has stood since July 2025. The decision matched market expectations.

Contained inflation and resilient demand drive hold: The BNM refrained from hiking, as average headline and core inflation remained broadly in line with expectations in January–May 2026. At the same time, a cut was ruled out due to lingering uncertainty over the Middle East conflict and the associated upside risks to inflation, while available data points to resilient GDP growth in Q2.

Rates likely to remain on hold through year-end: The Central Bank did not provide forward guidance regarding future changes to interest rates. Most of our panelists expect interest rates to remain on hold through end-2026. That said, a minority anticipates that sustained above-trend GDP growth or stronger-than-expected inflation could lead BNM to unwind July 2025’s 25 basis points cut. The Bank is scheduled to reconvene on 3 September.

Panelist insight: UOB’s Julia Goh and Loke Siew Ting said: “Recent high-frequency indicators suggest that Malaysia’s 2Q GDP growth could surprise on the upside. […] Nevertheless, we maintain our view that BNM is likely to keep the OPR unchanged, balancing pockets of economic strength against still moderate inflationary pressures.” Nomura’s Euben Paracuelles and Yiru Chen commented: “We reiterate our out-of-consensus forecast that BNM will hike its OPR by 25bp to a more neutral 3.00% in Q4, based on our optimistic view on the growth outlook. […] We sense that BNM is open to normalization, i.e. reversing the pre-emptive cut in July 2025, especially if strong growth persists while inflationary pressures start to rise significantly and become more broad-based.”

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