FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank (ECB) raised interest rates by a further 50 basis points on Thursday, prioritizing the fight against inflation despite concerns about the stability of the global banking system that have disrupted the financial markets.
Its deposit rate is thus increased to 3.0% and its increase has reached 350 basis points since July. The refinancing rate reached 3.50% and the rate of its marginal lending facility 3.75%.
The ECB has indicated that any further rate hikes will depend on incoming data.
“The high level of uncertainty reinforces the importance for the Governing Council of a data-driven approach to policy rate decisions,” the ECB said in a statement.
“These will be taken based on his assessment of the inflation outlook given economic and financial data, underlying inflation dynamics and the strength of monetary policy transmission,” he said. -she adds.
The central bank of the 20 countries sharing the euro has pledged to bring inflation back to the 2% target, from 8.5% recorded in February.
But investors began to doubt the will of the ECB to raise its rates again on Thursday, the day after the turmoil caused by the difficulties of Credit Suisse, in the list of so-called systemically important banks.
“The Governing Council is closely monitoring the current tensions in the markets and stands ready to take the necessary measures to preserve price and financial system stability in the euro area,” said the issuing institute.
After falling to its lowest level, the Swiss bank rebounded on the stock market thanks to the intervention of the Swiss central bank from which it will borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs (50.7 billion euros).
The President of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, will certainly have to answer questions on this file, and more broadly on the banking sector of the euro zone, during a press conference which will begin at 13:45 GMT.
On the stock market, the Stoxx banking index slightly widened its losses after the publication of the press release and yielded 0.50% around 1:35 p.m. GMT.
On the bond market, the yield on ten-year German government bonds, a benchmark for the entire euro zone, reduced its gains and stood at 2.139%.
The euro was in equilibrium against the greenback, gaining around 0.2% before the announcements by the Board of Governors.
(Report Francesco Canepa, Laetitia Volga, edited by Blandine Hénault and Kate Entringer)
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