After several quarters marked by persistent tensions in bank refinancing, liquidity in the Tunisian financial system entered, in the first quarter of 2026, a phase of relative calm. This improvement remains partial and paradoxical: even as banks’ liquidity needs eased, the money market moved back into deficit territory.
In its Economic Outlook Note No. 151 published in April 2026, the Central Bank of Tunisia highlights a shift in the money market from an average surplus of +74 million dinars in the fourth quarter of 2025 to an average deficit of -93 million dinars in the first quarter of 2026. A development that reflects less a structural deterioration of liquidity than a deliberate recalibration of monetary policy.
The key point is indeed the faster reduction in the Central Bank’s interventions, cut by 240 million dinars, compared with a decrease in banks’ needs limited to 73 million dinars. In other words, the issuing authority deliberately allowed the money market to operate with a lower level of assistance, considering that systemic tensions had become more contained.
This strategy signals a subtle yet meaningful shift in Tunisian monetary management. After a long period dominated by massive refinancing of the banking sector to avoid excessive rate tensions, the Central Bank now appears to favor a gradual normalization of its liquidity injections, without triggering a brutal shock to the financing of the economy.
Autonomous factors regain favor
One of the most important lessons of the quarter concerns the improvement of autonomous liquidity factors, traditionally decisive in the balance of the Tunisian money market.
The average balance of autonomous liquidity factors contracted by 85 million dinars to stand at 10.882 billion dinars. Behind this development lies a particularly favorable dynamic of net foreign currency assets and the currency in circulation.
