What the AWPR measures
The Average Weighted Prime Lending Rate (AWPR) is the Central Bank of Sri Lanka's measure of what banks charge their most creditworthy borrowers. Each week the Central Bank takes the interest rates licensed commercial banks applied to short-term rupee loans and advances granted to their prime customers during that week, and calculates a weighted average. Prime customers are the borrowers a bank treats as its lowest risk, typically large companies, so the AWPR is the low end of what banks lend at, not the rate a household is offered.
The Central Bank has compiled the AWPR since 1986. It publishes the weekly figure in its Weekly Economic Indicators, with a breakdown by bank, and the monthly figure, the average of that month's weekly rates, in statistical table 4.04 on its monetary sector statistics page. This tracker shows the monthly figure.
Why it matters if you are not a prime customer
Because it moves with banks' own cost of lending, the AWPR is used as a reference rate. A variable-rate loan priced on it is written as the AWPR plus a margin, and the rate you pay is reset on the dates your agreement sets, using the AWPR published for the period it names. The margin reflects your risk and the loan type, and it usually stays fixed while the reference rate moves. When the AWPR falls, your rate falls by the same amount at the next reset, and when it rises so does your rate, unless your agreement sets a floor or a cap.
The Central Bank's own 2020 order on mortgage-backed housing loans to salaried employees shows the structure. Loans under it were fixed for the first five years, then charged the AWPR plus 1% a year, reset every six months on the average monthly AWPR the Central Bank published over the preceding six months. That is exactly the figure in this table.
How it connects to policy rates
The AWPR follows the Central Bank's Overnight Policy Rate, and before November 2024 its policy rate corridor, but not at once. Banks reprice their prime loans as their own funding costs change, which takes weeks to months, so a policy move shows up in the AWPR gradually. The chart shows this plainly in 2022: the corridor jumped by 700 basis points on 8 April, and the AWPR climbed over the months that followed. In its review of 22 May 2025 the Monetary Policy Board noted it expected lending rates to keep adjusting after a cut.
How to use it with your own loan
Find three things in your offer letter or loan agreement: the reference rate (the AWPR or the bank's own rate), the margin above it, and how often the rate resets and on which published figure. Your rate at the next reset is that figure plus the margin. If your loan is fixed for an initial period, the AWPR matters only from the end of that period.
To see what a change in the AWPR does to your instalment, add your margin to it and enter the result in the mortgage calculator or the loan calculator. The rent vs buy calculator takes the same rate if you are deciding whether to borrow at all.
Reading the chart and the table
Each point is one calendar month, dated the first of the month, and its value is the average of the weekly AWPRs the Central Bank calculated in that month. The series begins in January 2003, where the Central Bank's monthly table begins. Values are given to two decimal places, as the Central Bank's Monthly Bulletin prints them; the source workbook holds a few months to more places. The weekly figures are not in this tracker, so a move in the last week or two may show in the Weekly Economic Indicators before it appears here. The AWPR covers prime lending only: it is not an average of housing loan rates or of all bank lending. The same table carries the Central Bank's broader averages, the Average Weighted Lending Rate on all outstanding loans and the Average Weighted New Lending Rate on loans granted in the month.