Hungary Ends 2 Years of Easing With Bid to Keep Rates Low

Hungary’s central bank ended Europe’s longest uninterrupted monetary-easing cycle and said it would seek to keep rates unchanged for more than a year after a final cut that was larger than predicted.

The central bank plans to hold its benchmark rate at 2.1 percent until the end of 2015, unless its 3 percent inflation goal is in jeopardy, President Gyorgy Matolcsy told reporters today in Budapest. The rate-setting Monetary Council lowered the two-week deposit rate to 2.1 percent from 2.3 percent today. All 21 economists in a Bloomberg survey saw a cut to 2.2 percent.