Most rates stayed ahead of prices
Of the 14 countries compared, 11 had a policy rate that averaged more than their inflation over 2025, so money held at the central bank's rate kept, and slightly grew, its value. The median real rate was +0.76 points. The highest was in India, at +3.61 points, where the Reserve Bank of India's repo rate averaged 5.79% while prices rose 2.18%.
At the other end, 3 countries had a negative real rate, led by Japan at −2.70 points. The Bank of Japan raised its rate during the year, ending it at 0.75%, but its average of 0.49% stayed far below inflation of 3.19%, the result of decades of rates near zero and only a recent return to positive ones.
One rate, six real rates
The six euro-area countries share one policy rate. The ECB's deposit facility rate averaged 2.26% over the year and stood at 2.00% at its end. Inflation was not shared: it ranged from 0.34% in Finland to 3.20% in the Netherlands. So the same rate gave Finland a real rate of +1.92 points and the Netherlands one of −0.94 points, a gap of 2.86 percentage points inside a single currency. This is the old difficulty of a monetary union: a rate set for the average fits none of its members exactly.
Falling rates, falling margins
Most central banks spent the year cutting. The Federal Reserve's target range averaged 4.25% but ended the year at a midpoint of 3.63%; the Bank of England's rate averaged 4.25% against inflation of 3.37%, a real rate of only +0.88 points. Because the average looks back over the whole year, a country that cut late still shows a higher real rate than its rate at the end of the year would give.
What a real policy rate means for you
A savings account rarely pays the policy rate itself, but the rates banks offer follow it, so the real policy rate is a guide to whether cash savings are keeping pace with prices. Where it is negative, money on deposit loses purchasing power even before tax on the interest. To see what that does over years, try the inflation calculator on your savings, or the compound interest calculator with your own rate.
How the figures were produced
Every rate comes from the same committed rate trackers as the rate pages, and every inflation figure from the price indices behind the inflation calculator. The rate is an average over the year rather than a single day, and inflation compares the two annual averages, so the two measure the same span. Sri Lanka is not in the ranking: the price index we hold disagrees with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka's published annual average for the year, and a ranking built on it would be wrong.