Conventional wisdom suggests Turkey’s central bank will drastically increase lending rates when its monetary policy board convenes later today. Inflation has ballooned and the lira has competed with Argentina’s peso as the worst-performing emerging-market currency this year. But conventional wisdom has not met Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since his recent re-election Turkey’s strongman has pressured the…
In June the bank announced its course of action over the coming year. It will gradually wind down asset purchases, while keeping interest rates on hold until at least the summer. That guidance is likely to remain unchanged after the ECB meets today. Although growth has slowed a little from headier rates in 2017, it…
Today the bank’s monetary-policy committee is expected to raise interest rates from 0.5% to 0.75%, moving Britain away from the ultra-loose monetary policy characterising the period since the financial crisis of 2008-09. Members of the MPC worry the economy is overheating. Inflation is at 2.4%, above the bank’s 2% target. Yet the bank is being…
The ECB is unlikely to announce a clear timeline for its exit strategy in January, but many now expect it to come in the first six months of the year. The latest accounts from December's meeting of the ECB's Governing Council, released January 11, took investors by surprise as there was a clear hint that…
Serbia's central bank kept its benchmark rate at 3.5 percent on Thursday, in line with market expectations, as the dinar exchange rate remained strong and inflation stayed inside the bank's target. Eleven out of 12 analysts and traders polled by Reuters this week and last said the central bank would leave the rate unchanged. One…
Hungary's benchmark base rate must stay at 0.9 percent and interbank rates around zero for inflation to reach the central bank's 3 percent target by mid-2019 in a sustainable way, the bank's Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy told weekly Figyelo. In an interview published on Thursday, Matolcsy also said the central bank would do everything at its…
Romania's central bank began raising interest rates for the first time in a decade on Monday, in an effort to curb inflation, now above its 2017 forecast. The bank raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point to 2.0 percent, becoming the second of the European Union's central and eastern states to start tightening from…
Inflation in the eurozone has remained below the 2 percent target The eurozone’s persistently weak prices have triggered a debate on whether the ECB’s 2 percent target should be lowered. PARIS — Here’s a bright idea: Since the European Central Bank has struggled for years to reach its inflation target, why not…
Inflation in the euro zone slowed as expected in December, vindicating the European Central Bank's decision to keep its policy easy despite growing pressure from Germany and other richer euro zone countries. The ECB has said it would continue buying bonds at least until September and keep rates low well after to raise inflation to…
Czech central bank (CNB) board's statement following its monetary policy meeting on Thursday, December 21: At its meeting today, the Bank Board of the Czech National Bank left interest rates unchanged. The two-week repo rate thus remains at 0.50 percent, the discount rate at 0.05 percent and the Lombard rate at 1 percent. Five members…
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