Namibia central bank keeps repo rate at 6.75%

WINDHOEK, June 18 (Reuters) - Namibia's central bank left its main interest rate unchanged at 6.75% (NACBIR=ECI), opens new tab on Wednesday, saying the decision aimed to safeguard the peg between the domestic currency and the South African rand while supporting economic activity.
The repo rate has been at 6.75% since February 2025.
Namibia's annual inflation edged down to 3.5% in May from 3.6% April (NACPIY=ECI), opens new tab.

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The Sun

5 hours ago

• The Sun

Exact date 6.7million households on Universal Credit to get inflation-busting payment boost

MILLIONS of households on Universal Credit will receive a bumper pay rise within months. Almost seven million households claiming the benefit will see their standard allowance rise by more than inflation from April 2026. 1 This change will become law, pending Parliamentary approval of the DWP's Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, which was introduced earlier this week. This means 6.7 million households could receive around £750 more per year in cash by 2030. The standard allowance is the basic payment for households on Universal Credit. Currently, single people under 25 receive £316.98 a month and couples under 25 get £497.55 a month. Meanwhile, single people over 25 get £400.14 a month and couples aged 25 or older receive £628.10 a month. Normally, benefit payments go up each spring to help people keep pace with the rising cost of living, like food, fuel, and household bills. These increases typically match the consumer price index of inflation from the previous September. But, the government has claimed that the four-year benefit freeze from 2015 to 2019 has caused millions of payments to fall behind rising inflation. As a result, from April 2026, the government wants to hike the standard allowance by more than inflation over the next four years. This means that by 2030, the amount a claimant receives will be almost 5% higher than if it had only risen to match inflation. Rachel Reeves delivers the Spring Budget in full The increases will be worked out by adding the inflation rate from the previous September, plus an extra fixed boost. These extra percentages will be set at: 2.3% for 2026-27 3.1% for 2027-28 4.0% for 2028-29 4.8% for 2029-30 The government wants to help more people return to work and rely less on incapacity benefits, which face huge cuts. To save £5billion a year by 2030, it plans to make PIP assessments stricter and freeze the extra health payments in Universal Credit for those unable to work. The government believes that raising the standard allowance for everyone while reducing the health top-up will make returning to work more financially worthwhile and possible. What is the Universal Credit standard allowance? UNIVERSAL Credit is a welfare scheme which was designed to combine several of the old "legacy benefits The standard allowance is the basic monthly payment provided to individuals or families who qualify. The amount you receive depends on your age and whether you're single or in a couple: Single, under 25: £316.98 Single, 25 or over: £400.14 Couple, both under 25: £497.55 Couple, one or both 25 or over: £628.09 You may also be eligible for additional amounts if you have children, have a disability or health condition, or need help with housing costs. Meanwhile, around 400,000 households receiving income-related employment and support allowance (ESA) are being urged to make the move to Universal Credit. The government is progressing with its plans to transfer all legacy benefit claimants onto Universal Credit, through a process referred to as "managed migration." The managed migration process officially began back in July 2022 after a successful pilot in July 2019. Since then, households receiving one of five legacy benefits, have been receiving postal notifications outlining the steps required to transition to Universal Credit. Upon receiving a migration letter, claimants are given up to three months to make the switch. Failure to act within this timeframe could result in the loss of existing benefits. The latest data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) shows that 381,440 individuals lost their benefits after failing to act within this time frame. Initially, the government planned to transfer all ESA claimants to Universal Credit by the end of 2028. However, this deadline was brought forward to March 2026. How can I get help claiming Universal Credit? As well as benefit calculators, anyone moving from ESA to Universal Credit can find help in a number of ways. You can visit your local Jobcentre by searching at There's also a free service called Help to Claim from Citizen's Advice: England: 0800 144 8 444 Scotland: 0800 023 2581 Wales: 08000 241 220 You can also get help online from advisers at Will I be better off on Universal Credit? ANALYSIS by James Flanders, The Sun's Chief Consumer Reporter: Around 1.4million people on legacy benefits will be better off after switching to Universal Credit, according to the government. A further 300,000 would see no change in payments, while around 900,000 would be worse off under Universal Credit. Of these, around 600,000 can get top-up payments (transitional protection) if they move under the managed migration process, so they don't lose out on cash immediately. The majority of those - around 400,000 - are claiming employment support allowance (ESA). Around 100,000 are on tax credits, while fewer than 50,000 each on other legacy benefits are expected to be affected. Those who move voluntarily and are worse off won't get these top-up payments and could lose cash. Those who miss the managed migration deadline and later make a claim may not get transitional protection. The clock starts ticking on the three-month countdown from the date of the first letter, and reminders are sent via post and text message. There is a one-month grace period after this, during which any claim to Universal Credit is backdated, and transitional protection can still be awarded. Examples of those who may be entitled to less on Universal Credit include: Households getting ESA and the severe disability premium and enhanced disability premium Households with the lower disabled child addition on legacy benefits Self-employed households who are subject to the Minimum Income Floor after the 12-month grace period has ended In-work households that worked a specific number of hours (e.g. lone parent working 16 hours claiming working tax credits Households receiving tax credits with savings of more than £6,000 (and up to £16,000) Either way, if these households don't switch in the future, they risk missing out on any future benefit increase and seeing payments frozen.

Telegraph

7 hours ago

• Telegraph

EU fantasies of toppling the dollar are totally delusional

It's a nice problem to have amid the Trump-inspired madness that grips today's foreign exchange markets. But it's a problem none the less. The Swiss franc keeps on appreciating, and there seems to be almost nothing the authorities can do to stop it. Increasingly alarmed by its trajectory, the Swiss National Bank last week cut its official policy rate back down to zero, and there is now talk of rates going negative again by summer's end. But to little effect. Switzerland's safe haven attributes have rarely been in such high demand. Rising geopolitical tensions have combined with growing loss of trust in the dollar as the bedrock of the global economy to send the franc soaring, almost regardless of whatever rate of interest it carries. Lest it be gold, there are few repositories of wealth thought more secure than Switzerland. Contrast that with the UK, where Bank Rate is still firmly stuck at 4.25pc with stubbornly persistent inflation to match. Thanks substantially to the lower import prices that the surging franc brings about, prices as a whole are going down not up; there is little or no cost of living crisis. This is great for consumers, not so much for Swiss industry, which has to match these deflating prices at home and abroad. But thus far at least, it's coped remarkably well. I've never bought the idea that a competitive economy needs a weak currency. Persistent devaluation has been the British way for decades now, and little good has it done either. At best, it's only smoothed the decline – a tranquiliser to avoid having to face up to the hard yards of painful structural adjustment. While the UK has grown poorer, the Swiss grow ever richer – living proof that a strong currency goes hand in hand with a competitive economy. The one is a reflection of the other. Bad, uncompetitive companies are quickly weeded out and dispensed with, while the disciplines of having to compete with cheaper foreign goods and services forces the survivors into imaginative innovation and productivity gain. You can, however, have too much of a good thing, and this is the unfortunate position that Switzerland now finds itself in. Broadly speaking, Switzerland produces in appreciating francs, but sells in equally fast depreciating dollars. There is only so far countervailing productivity improvement can take you. Theoretically, Donald Trump's tariff policies should make the dollar stronger, in that all other things being equal, they ought to reduce the size of the deficit. But it hasn't worked out that way. In practice, they've only further undermined international confidence in US economic management more widely. To most observers, it looks as if the White House is deliberately trying to tank the dollar. And on one level, it is; a depreciating dollar temporarily helps domestic producers by making imports more expensive. When combined with tariffs – effectively a sales tax on foreign producers – US industry gets a double boost. Trump wants the best of both worlds; he wants a weak dollar, but he also very much likes the dollar's commanding position in the global economy for the geopolitical power it bestows. Sadly for him, it's not clear he can have both. To support a weak dollar, he needs to make dollar assets less attractive to foreign investors. As Stephen Miran, the head of Trump's council of economic advisers, has suggested, this might be achieved by imposing a withholding tax on income generated by US assets, or by converting foreign holdings of US Treasuries into 100-year bonds. Trump's problem is that the less attractive the US makes itself to foreign investors, the less likely it is that the dollar can sustain its dominant reserve currency position. Use of the dollar for sanctions against countries the US has got a problem with has further undermined trust in the currency as both a store of value and reliable means of exchange. International trust relies crucially on the idea of a global order based on agreed rules, the very thing Trump wants to dispense with. So the dollar turns weaker, and together with the Trump tariff shock, it drives up domestic US inflation. Despite almost daily berating from Trump, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, is sitting on his hands and refusing to reduce interest rates in the precipitous way the president demands. The more Trump complains, the more Powell digs in. Determination not to give way has become a matter of principle, almost regardless of its economic merits. Powell's stance is totemic in the wider struggle to protect institutional integrity from presidential diktat. Once Federal Reserve independence goes, the whole fragile structure of dollar hegemony begins to crumble. Even Trump must know that. Meanwhile, Europe is cutting fast – with the notable exception of the UK, where inflation remains a problem. Normally, America's higher interest rates relative to Europe would cause the dollar to strengthen, but the trust issue has provoked a very different response – a weaker dollar despite a widening interest rate gap. Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, sees Trump's antics as an opportunity for a 'global euro moment'. It has long been the ambition of European policymakers to look the mighty dollar in the face, and eventually usurp its position in the international monetary system. This has always seemed fanciful. For all its grandstanding, the EU remains a disjointed confederation of fiscally sovereign and often deeply divided nations, with no centralised Treasury function to speak of, no banking union and no unified sovereign debt market. This makes its monetary union acutely vulnerable to existential crisis. Lagarde might think of herself as queen bee, but her powers and reach are remarkably limited. As long as this remains the case – and there is little sign of it changing – Lagarde's musings are just delusional nonsense. Where reserve managers have been diversifying away from the dollar, it has, moreover, tended to be into gold, not the euro. Indeed, gold recently overtook the euro as the biggest central bank reserve asset after the dollar. A rather more potent long term threat comes from China, whose central bank digital currency and the infrastructure being built around it are deliberately designed to provide an alternative to the dollar for trade and investment. Those who take umbrage at Trump's America can try China instead. Who's to say it's less reliable than a country that slaps record tariffs on some of its closest allies? Regrettably, Switzerland is just too small to act as a global reserve currency. As it is, it struggles to manage the inflows of international capital looking for safety amid the bedlam of today's world. Already, the Swiss National Bank balance sheet is swollen by its various currency interventions to a size considerably bigger than that of Switzerland's entire economy. It can surely go no further in printing Swiss francs to buy foreign assets. But as I say, it's a nice problem to have.

BBC News

11 hours ago

• BBC News

Wirral Council's debt increases by £233m in six months

Wirral Council's net debt has increased by £233m in six months, with the expectation more borrowing is on the figure was revealed during a meeting about the authority's treasury management strategy.A summary published by the local authority showed that between September 2024 to March 2025 there was a £25m increase in spending on Public Finance Initiatives (PFI), £73m in borrowings, and a drop of £8.2m in £152.5m of the £233m was due to changes to PFI liabilities, and accounting rules which mean rent costs must be listed on the council's balance sheet both as an asset being leased and the future lease payments. PFIs was a government policy launched in 1992 where a private firm was contracted to deliver a public project while the costs were then paid back over several years. Wirral Council said the PFIs had to be reassessed to take inflation into account. 'Long-term stability' Changes to debt borrowing have been blamed on accountancy rule changes, capital projects such as regeneration, and temporary loans taken from other councils, the Local Democracy Reporting Service report said: "The council's chief objective when borrowing has been to strike an appropriately low risk balance between securing low interest costs and achieving cost certainty."The council's borrowing strategy continues to address the key issue of affordability without compromising the longer-term stability of the debt portfolio."It said external borrowing may have to increase in the future and the decrease in investments was because the council was having to use that funding for service needs.A Policy and Resources committee meeting will further discuss the council's finances on 26 June . Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.