ECB hikes rates, promises another 50 bps more in March

The European Central Bank raised interest rates for the fifth successive time on Thursday and signalled another half a percentage point increase for March, pressing ahead with policy tightening even as some global peers are slowing down, Report informs via Reuters.

Fighting runaway inflation, the ECB has raised its key rate by an unprecedented 3 percentage points in just seven months, in the hope that higher borrowing costs will temper demand and prevent rapid price growth from getting entrenched.

At its first meeting this year, the ECB lifted the deposit rate to 2.5% from 2%, as it had promised in December. But it did not follow the US Federal Reserve in clearly signalling a slowdown in the pace of policy tightening.

"The Governing Council will stay the course in raising interest rates significantly at a steady pace," the ECB said in a statement.

"The Governing Council intends to raise interest rates by another 50 basis points at its next monetary policy meeting in March and it will then evaluate the subsequent path of its monetary policy," it added.

Policymakers have been increasingly split over the rate outlook in recent weeks as incoming data was ambiguous and could support the case for both quicker and slower rate hikes.