Bank Negara Malaysia held the Overnight Policy Rate at 2.75 percent on 3 September 2026
The central bank stated that the current Overnight Policy Rate level is consistent with continued price stability and sustainable growth, while the Monetary Policy Committee stated that it remains vigilant to risks to inflation and growth.
Reporting sourcesBank Negara MalaysiaBank Negara Malaysia
The Monetary Policy Committee of Bank Negara Malaysia decided to maintain the Overnight Policy Rate at 2.75 percent, in the Monetary Policy Statement published on 3 September 2026. The rate therefore stands where it stood before the meeting, and the statement is the central bank's own account of why.
Bank Negara Malaysia set the decision against the growth it has already recorded. The Malaysian economy expanded 5.7 percent in the first half of 2026, and the central bank expects growth for the full year 2026 to be around 5 percent. That first-half figure follows the quarterly detail published on 14 August 2026 in Economic and Financial Developments in Malaysia in the Second Quarter of 2026, where real gross domestic product grew 6.0 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2026 compared with 5.4 percent in the first quarter of 2026.
On prices, the statement reports that headline inflation averaged 1.8 percent and core inflation averaged 2.0 percent in the first seven months of 2026. In the second-quarter release Bank Negara Malaysia projected headline inflation of 1.5 to 2.5 percent for 2026, so the seven-month headline average sits inside the range the central bank published in August.
The statement's own wording carries the reasoning. Bank Negara Malaysia stated that the current Overnight Policy Rate level is consistent with continued price stability and sustainable growth. The Monetary Policy Committee stated that it remains vigilant to risks to inflation and growth. Those two sentences are the decision's full published justification: a level judged consistent with the mandate, held with the risks left explicitly open.
What the statement does not do is name a next step. It states no rate for any later meeting and no condition that would change the rate, and none is inferred here. The checkable position after 3 September 2026 is an Overnight Policy Rate of 2.75 percent, a first-half expansion of 5.7 percent, a full-year growth view of around 5 percent, and seven-month inflation averages of 1.8 percent headline and 2.0 percent core.