Friday, March 23, 2012

Monetary Policy Week in Review - 24 March 2012

The past week in monetary policy saw 8 central banks announcing monetary policy decisions.  Of those that changed interest rate levels, Mauritius cut its rate -50bps to 4.90%, and Ukraine cut -25bps to 7.50%, while Iceland increased +25bps to 5.00%.  Those that held interest rates unchanged were: Nigeria 12.00%, Egypt 9.25%, Thailand 3.00%, Taiwan 1.875%, and Colombia 5.25%.  On the required reserves front, Egypt cut its banks required reserve ratio by 200 basis points, Ukraine also eased reserve requirements, and the People's Bank of China selectively eased reserve requirements for 396 branches of the Agricultural Bank of China.

Looking at the central bank calendar, the week ahead sees the central banks of Israel, Hungary, Turkey, and South Africa meeting to review monetary policy settings. The base case would be for no change among all of these emerging market central banks. Elsewhere next week features speeches from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, ECB president Mario Draghi, Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney, and the Bank of England puts out its quarterly bulletin.

Mar-26
ILS
Israel
Bank of Israel
Mar-27
HUF
Hungary
The Magyar Nemzeti Bank
Mar-27
TRY
Turkey
Central Bank of Turkey
Mar-29
ZAR
South Africa
South African Reserve Bank



IMPORTANT NOTICE: The Central Bank News website is presently for sale, if you are interested please click through for more details.

6 comments:

  1. I'm hearing more rumors about an imminent RRR cut from the PBOC - you heard anything on that yet?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Inflation is still a risk, but that flash PMI result the other day was not at all promising - methinks an RRR cut would be timely!

      Delete
    2. Haven't heard anything yet, will post to the website as soon as we hear anything. Usually the PBOC makes its moves close to key data releases.

      Delete
  2. Why aren't more banks cutting rates?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. While each bank faces a different set of circumstances, some reasons for not cutting - or increasing rates - include a strong domestic economy, rising inflation pressures and expectations, and economic imbalances.

      Delete
  3. These weekly reviews are really good

    ReplyDelete