Central Banks
Philippines Slows Rate-Hike Pace as Tightening Nears End
- Governor signals pause can be considered, depends on inflation
- 2023, 2024 inflation forecasts of 6%, 2.9% lower vs. Feb ests.
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The Philippine central bank shifted to a smaller interest-rate increase and cut inflation forecasts, signaling it may be at the tail end of its most aggressive monetary tightening in two decades.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas raised the overnight reverse repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 6.25% on Thursday, as seen by all but one of 22 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. One predicted a pause. That brings the cumulative increases since May to 425 basis points including four half-point and two 75 basis-point actions. The rate is at the highest since May 2007.