Central Banks
ECB Officials Wanted to Keep Options Open on Pace of Rate Cuts
- Account of September meeting renewed call for data dependency
- Markets expect another decrease in deposit rate next week
The headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany.
Photographer: Alex Kraus/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
European Central Bank officials were keen to maintain flexibility on the speed of interest-rate reductions with inflation not fully defeated and risks to the euro-zone economy building, an account of their last policy decision showed.
“It was better to maintain full optionality for the period ahead to be free to respond to all of the incoming data,” according to the summary, published Thursday. “It was underlined that the speed at which the degree of restrictiveness should be reduced depended on the evolution of incoming data.”