Business & Markets · Lending interest rate · Eswatini
Eswatini’s lending interest rate rose to 10.9% in 2024.
10.9%
2024
Up 0.04 pp from 2023.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
10.9%
What it is. The lending interest rate is the price banks charge private sector borrowers for short and medium term loans, such as working capital for a firm or an overdraft for a household. It is a single headline rate summarising what banks charge, so a borrower with strong collateral and a clean record may pay less and a riskier one more. It covers bank credit only, and leaves out informal lenders and loans arranged outside the banks.
Neither way is good in itself. A higher rate pays savers and lenders more and costs borrowers more, while a lower rate does the reverse, so the direction carries no verdict on its own. The latest figure is 10.9% in January 2024, up from 10.8% a year earlier, a rise of 0.04 percentage points. That is the highest level since 2015 and sits at the top of the range for the period. The lowest point since 2015 was 7.3% in January 2021.
Why it matters. At 10.9%, borrowing is costly for Eswatini firms financing stock, wages or equipment, and for households carrying loans priced off the bank rate. The rate is well above its January 2021 level of 7.3%, so loans taken out now carry noticeably higher repayments than those arranged then. Savers with bank deposits are on the other side of the same rate.
| Period | Lending interest rate · Eswatini |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 9% |
| 2016 | 10.3% |
| 2017 | 10.8% |
| 2018 | 10.3% |
| 2019 | 10.1% |
| 2020 | 8% |
| 2021 | 7.3% |
| 2022 | 8.5% |
| 2023 | 10.8% |
| 2024 | 10.9% |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Lending interest rate, Eswatini, 2024; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/business/lending-rate/eswatini
Data insights · Worked out from the published figures
What this means
Working this out from the published figures…
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Methodology
Bank rate that usually meets the short- and medium-term financing needs of the private sector. Unit: %.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series FR.INR.LEND), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.