Colombia Ignores Santos Pressure and Raises Rate to 4.25%

Colombia’s central bank raised its borrowing costs for a fifth month, ignoring President Juan Manuel Santos’s call for policy makers to pause and preserve growth.

The seven-member board, led by bank chief Jose Dario Uribe, increased the benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 4.25 percent today, meeting expectations of 22 of 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Traders are expecting the bank to raise the rate to as high as 5 percent by year-end.