The Monetary Board of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at its meeting held on 21 October 2020, decided to maintain the Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) and the Standing Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) of the Central Bank at their current levels of 4.50 per cent and 5.50 per cent, respectively, thereby continuing the prevailing accommodative monetary policy stance. The Board noted the decline in overall market lending rates, following the unprecedented monetary easing measures taken by the Central Bank thus far during the year, and expects the broadbased downward adjustment in market lending rates to continue, thereby ensuring affordable credit flows to productive sectors of the economy in the prevailing low inflation environment.

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka, as of 15th October 2020, approved 61,907 loan applications received from COVID-19 affected businesses. These applications were for a total of Rs. 177,954 million and registered under the three Phases of the Saubagya COVID-19 Renaissance Facility. So far, the Licensed Banks have released loans amounting to Rs. 133,192 million among 45,582 affected businesses island-wide (See Table 1 for details).