Philippines’ Next Rate Move to Hinge on When Confidence Returns

The Philippine central bank cut its benchmark interest rate for a sixth straight meeting to aid an economy hit by a massive corruption scandal, and signaled that further easing would depend on how soon confidence is restored.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reduced its target reverse repurchase rate by a quarter of a point to 4.25% on Thursday, as predicted by 24 of 26 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Two had expected the rate to remain unchanged.