May 2026 - Money updates across the African continent

Dear monetary economists,

Apologies for the much longer-than-usual lag in the May money update across the African continent. For credibility, I am compelled to base my monetary analysis on official data for all the monetary jurisdictions, yet the figures are released at different times. That partly explains the delay, and I apologize for it.

Anyway, this update continues my monthly money updates across the African continent, including charts and pointers on the money situation, using the broad money theoretical framework. As always, it covers South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria, and concludes with Uganda. This time, the UMEOA Zone does not feature because official data has not been released.

South Africa

South Africa's broad money grew at an annualized rate of 15.4% in the three months to May 2026. This was a rise from April’s 14.1%, maintaining the recent high levels. The annual rate rose to 10.0%, the highest so far this year and since late 2023.

The main reason for the upturn in money growth is the expansion in credit to the private sector, which grew from R 4,932,321 million in May 2025 to R 5,355,723 million in May 2026 (about 8.6% growth). Since commercial bank lending creates deposits, the strong rise in household and mortgage advances directly explains the rapid broad money growth.

Egypt

The annualized quarterly growth rate of Egypt's M2 declined slightly to 32.6%, down from 33.5% in April. The annual growth rate also rose from 19.3% to 19.6% in May. Local-currency deposits grew by 4% between April and May, reaching EGP 15330740 million.

The quarterly growth rate for the year ended May was 48.39%, compared with 42% for the quarter ended April. This explains the underlying momentum in the quarterly growth rates of M2 broad money.

Generally, with inflation recorded at 14.9%, twice the average target of 7.0% for 2026 Q4, the Central Bank of Egypt still needs to bring current money growth down to levels around 11-13%.

 Nigeria

Although Nigeria's M3 recorded its weakest growth since 2021 in April, the annualized quarterly growth rate picked up sharply to a record high of 21.2% in 2026, and the annual growth rate reached 8.4%, signaling renewed momentum in broad money growth. The three-month annualized rate, which had remained subdued and even turned negative in the quarter ending March 2026, picked up to 5.4% and 8.4% in April and May, respectively.

Nigeria’s money and credit statistics indicate weak growth between April and May, with claims on the private sector rising by about 0.57% to N 81041509.68 million, up from N 80585296.57 million in the previous month. Claims on the government grew slightly more than those on the private sector, at 1.97%, reaching N 40378881.21 million in May. Demand deposits also expanded weakly, by about 1.94% from April to May, to N 40378881.2 million.

Generally speaking, the recent growth rate in the quantity of money for Nigeria continues to be a welcome development in the sense of supporting necessary disinflation.

 Uganda

In May, M3 broad money declined 0.35%, lowering the annualized quarterly growth rate from 8.5% to 0.3%. The annualized growth rate also fell sharply to 14.1% in May from 17.7% the previous month. Commercial bank deposits expanded 3.05% from April, reaching UGX 41,727.82 billion in May.

On the other hand, commercial banks' net claims on government grew by -0.91% between April and May, compared with 2% between April and March, and were far from the marked annualized quarterly growth of 18.24% in the quarter ending April. The May figure stood at UGX 18,269.12 billion, down from UGX 18,437.49 billion in April. However, the Bank of Uganda's net claims on government almost doubled, growing by 79.46% between April and May. The figure stood at UGX 4,615.13 billion in May, up from UGX 2,571.66 billion in April 2026.

To conclude this on a good note, Uganda’s broad money growth has moderated back to desired levels, and the Bank of Uganda’s role remains to closely monitor broad money and maintain a stable, desired level for a healthy macroeconomic environment.