ECONOMIST Noel Nkhoma says the Bank of Zambia’s (BoZ) decision to raise the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 50 basis points will increase the Non-Performing Loans (NPL) ratio, a situation that will result in more loan defaults on existing credit facilities. In response to a query, Nkhoma, the Betternow Finance Limited chief executive officer, observed that with NPLs having reached an average of 25 per cent in both bank and non-bank institutions, the risk to the financial sector following the marginal hike in the MPR to 8.5 per cent is...