Central Bank Watch
Preview of March 2024 FOMC Meeting
March 20, 2024
The thrust of Chairman Powell’s press conference after the last FOMC meeting was that monetary officials are happy with the U.S. economic performance — a combination of solid growth, very low unemployment, and a faster-than-imagined drop of inflation — but that they are waiting for more evidence of such satisfactory trends before beginning to reduce […] More
Bank of Japan Exits Negative Short-Term Interest Rate Territory
March 19, 2024
The Bank of Japan‘s ended “yield curve control”, a negative short-term interest rate target, and asset purchases other than government bonds and restored the primacy of its overnight rate — now 0-0.1% — as its primary policy tool. These changes were justified by the greater-than-expected 5% wage increases that came out of this year’s spring […] More
National Bank of Georgia Interest Rate Reduced to 8.25% from 9.0%
March 13, 2024
Officials at the National Bank of Georgia implemented a bigger interest rate cut of 75 basis points this month than those of 50 bps at the prior two policy reviews. They cited the very low CPI inflation rate of 0.3% versus a target of 3.0% and a high-water mark of 13.9% recorded in December 2021 […] More
ECB Keeps Interest Rates Steady
March 7, 2024
The European Central Bank has maintained its interest rate trio unchanged since hikes made last September to 4.0% on the deposit rate, 4.5% on the refinancing rate, and 4.75% for its marginal loan facility. A statement released at the Governing Council’s previous policy review in January affirmed “future decisions will ensure that its policy rates […] More
Central Bank of Egypt and Bank of Uganda Hike Their Interest Rates
March 6, 2024
Central banks in Egypt and Uganda raised their interest rates earlier today. Although Egyptian consumer price inflation decelerated from 38% in September to 29.8% four months later, officials at the Central Bank of Egypt raised their interest rate by 200 basis points in February and augmented that action at an unscheduled meeting today by a […] More
Full Percentage Point Cut in Hungary’s Central Bank Base Rate
February 27, 2024
A reduction in the Central Bank of Hungary’s Base Rate from 10.0% to 9.0% bring its decline since October to 400 basis points. This cumulative decline is slightly less than the concurrent lessening of core consumer price inflation from 10.9% to 6.1% and two percentage points less than the slowdown in total CPI inflation from […] More
Kazakhstan’s Fifth Central Bank Cut since August
February 23, 2024
To counter swelling inflation that crested a year ago at a 21st century high of 21.3%, the National Bank of Kazakhstan’s policy interest rate was 775 basis points between July 2021 and the end of 2022. After the final hike, central bank officials signaled an end to the streak but also promised not to cut […] More
Chinese 5-Year Loan Prime Rate Reduction
February 20, 2024
The biggest central banking development of the day was the decision by officials at the People’s Bank of China to lower their 5-year Loan Prime Rate by a record 25 basis points to 3.95%. Analysts had anticipated an easing gesture but were looking for a cut of only 15 bps to buoy the economy’s increasingly […] More
Czech National Bank’s 50-Basis Point Interest Rate Cut Above Expectations, But Policy Still Deemed Restrictive
February 8, 2024
A initial 25-basis point reduction of the CNB 2-week repo rate in December has been followed by a half percentage point cut at the first scheduled review of 2024. One of the seven policymakers favored cutting the rate by 75 basis point this time. Czech GDP contracted 0.4% on average in 2023, including a 0.2% […] More
National Bank of Moldova Base Rate Cut to 4.25% from 4.75%
February 6, 2024
At 4.25%, the new base rate level in Moldova is just 160 basis points above the pandemic low of 2.65% maintained from November 2020 to July 2021. In between as consumer price inflation in Moldova soared to 35% in October 2022, the central bank reference interest rate had been lifted many times and to as […] More
