THE recent 50 basis points hike in Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) overnight policy rate (OPR) will not affect borrowers drastically, Yamani Hafez Musa said.

“The 50 basis points increase in OPR has only increased the repayment for housing loans of RM300,000 over 35 years by RM85 per month,” the deputy finance minister told parliament during the question-and-answer session today.

For housing loans of RM500,000 over 35 years, the additional repayment is only RM142 per month, said the Sipitang lawmaker.

He told parliament this was done through BNM’s simulation studies on the effects of OPR hikes on borrowers.

“According to BNM, the OPR hikes will not have any drastic effect on B40 borrowers either as their loans are mainly fixed interest rates for cars and personal loans,” said Yamani.

And while borrowers of floating interest rate loans will be affected, Yamani said depositors will also receive higher interest too.

He noted that this was similar to 2020 when BNM cut OPR by 125 basis points. 

“When it was cut by 125 basis points, borrowers for housing loans of RM300, 000 over 35 years saved RM219 per month ,while for RM500, 000 the amount saved was RM399 per month,” said Yamani.

As for small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) or microbusinesses, Yamani said BNM has various programmes to help them with the repayment. 

The deputy minister was responding to a Pang Hok Liong’s (Labis-PH) supplementary question on the effects of the OPR hikes on borrowers. 

Meanwhile, Yamani told parliament that BNM’s international reserves amounted to US$112.8 billion as at 31 May 2022. 

“The reserves position is sufficient to finance 5.7 months of imports of goods and services and is 1.1 times of the total short-term external debt.” – August 1, 2022.