Philippine Central Bank Likely To Raise Interest Rates By 25 points

The Philippine central bank will most likely raise interest rates again this year, most likely by 25 basis points, at its next monetary policy meeting in March, its governor said on Friday.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has expressed concern about inflation reaching a 14-year high of 8.7 percent in January, but if the consumer price index (CPI) is negative in February on a month-on-month basis, there will be no need for a rate hike, governor Felipe Medalla told reporters.

On February 16, the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points at its first rate-setting meeting of the year.

The monetary authorities will meet again on March 23 after raising rates eight times for a total of 400 basis points since last year.

Medalla said on the sidelines of a BSP dinner that he hoped non-monetary measures would slow inflation and that the BSP was aiming for inflation of less than 4% by November.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (literally "Central Bank of the Philippines"; commonly abbreviated as BSP in both Filipino and English) is the Philippines' central bank. It was founded on July 3, 1993, in accordance with Republic Act 7653, or the New Central Bank Act of 1993, as amended by Republic Act 11211, or the New Central Bank Act of 2019.