BIS Review 80/2008  5  Supervisors are monitoring banks' commercial lending activities, particularly leveraged loan portfolios, to detect weaknesses in asset quality that may result from slowing economic conditions and to ensure appropriate risk management practices. In part, the agencies rely on their Shared National Credit (SNC) program to assess the credit quality of banks' commercial loan portfolios.
Consider the difference: from January 2002 the MPC increased the repo rate by 400 basis points over 16 months, whereas in the past 31 months we have increased the rate by 200 basis points. As a small open economy, South Africa is highly exposed to exogenous shocks that can affect inflation.