Philippines shifts to smaller rate hike amid global banking woes

MANILA (Bloomberg): The Philippine central bank slowed the pace of its interest-rate increases as it seeks to cool still-hot inflation while allowing itself some policy-manoeuvre room in the event of risks from a global banking turmoil.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas raised the overnight reverse repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 6.25% on Thursday (March 23), as seen by all but one of 22 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. One predicted a pause. That takes the cumulative increases since May to 425 basis points, which included four half-point moves and two 75 basis-point actions.