The South African rand held onto early gains on Thursday following the South African Reserve Bank's (SARB) decision to cut interest rates for the first time in over four years, after a super-sized interest rate cut by the U.

SARB cut its main benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to 8%.

South Africa’s real, inflation-adjusted interest rates reached the highest level in 19 years after price pressures cooled, but that’s unlikely to embolden the central bank to cut borrowing costs by more than a quarter point.