Mozambique: Required reserves held at the central bank peaked at €3.5 billion in December

The required reserves of Mozambican banks surged 20% in 2025, reaching a peak of 259.2 billion meticais (€3.5 billion), after consecutive declines following the easing of restrictions by the central bank. According to the latest statistical report from the central bank, the required reserves of commercial banks held at the Bank of Mozambique had reached a record 291.5 billion meticais (€3.93 billion) in December 2024, immediately before the central bank eased restrictions in January 2025. In November 2025, according to the historical data in the latest statistical report, the volume of these required reserves at the central bank rose slightly to 217.6 billion meticais (€2.94 billion), before jumping in December to a one-year high of 259.2 billion meticais (€3.5 billion).

The report does not provide explanations for this sharp increase within the space of a single month. The reserve requirement ratios for commercial banks had been set by the Bank of Mozambique at 10.5% in national currency and 11% in foreign currency at the beginning of January 2023. During the first six months of that year, they were increased twice to “absorb excess liquidity in the banking system, with the potential to generate inflationary pressure,” the central bank explained at the time.

The last of these increases took place in June 2023, when they reached historic levels of 39% of deposits in national currency and 39.5% in foreign currency being held as bank reserves. Since the end of December 2022, when they stood at 62.1 billion meticais (€837 million), the volume of bank reserves held by the central bank rose by almost 400%, up to the end of 2024. Amid a shortage of foreign currency domestically, Mozambican business leaders had since 2024 insisted on the need for the central bank to ease the reserve requirement ratios in foreign currency.

[paywall]

That decision only came on 27 January 2025, when the Monetary Policy Committee (CPMO) of the Bank of Mozambique decided to cut the reserve requirement ratios to 29% in national currency and 29.5% in foreign currency. The measure aimed to “provide more liquidity to support the economy in restoring productive capacity and the supply of goods and services”, according to the statement issued after the CPMO meeting, which has not changed those ratios since.

[/paywall]