The meeting of the Board of Directors of the European Central Bank is expected to be critical for the future of interest rates, after yesterday’s developments with Credit Suisse.

Already the head of the ECB Christine Lagarde had announced an increase in interest rates by 0.5%, however after yesterday’s developments this becomes doubtful.

Several analysts have revised their forecasts, estimating that the ECB will eventually proceed today with a smaller increase in interest rates, while some do not rule out the possibility that interest rates will remain temporarily “frozen”.

It is indicative that Deutsche Bank and Bloomberg Economics they estimate the ECB will move by 25 basis points or even less, under pressure from massive liquidations in banking-focused markets.

Already, relevant pressures on the ECB had begun to appear shortly after the collapse of the American Silicon Valley Bank.

A former member of the ECB’s Executive Board, the Italian, moved along the same wavelength Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, who is now chairman of Societe Generale SA. He urged current members to either delay the 0.50 increase for the time being or halve it to 0.25.

The risk, according to Bini Smaghi, would be to repeat the mistake made by the ECB when in 2011, when it proceeded to increase interest rates, only to be forced to reduce them shortly after.

Former ECB vice-president Vitor Constancio, head of Portugal’s central bank from 2000-2010, agreed, saying on Twitter that officials should raise interest rates by 25 basis points.

However, as far as the forward money market is concerned, since yesterday, investors have assumed that the increase in interest rates will be limited to 0.25%.

Nevertheless, some more “rigid” Central Bankers such as former ECB Governing Council member Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell implicitly but clearly insist that the ECB should continue to raise interest rates until the inflation battle is won, considering that the problem which has been caused with Credit Suisse is isolated and of a “regulatory nature” which is even outside the euro zone.