MANILA, Philippines — The central bank will likely keep its key interest rate unchanged when its Monetary Board convenes on Thursday with the regulator finding itself lodged between the opposing demands of fighting rising inflation and restarting the country’s economic growth.
As such, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) may even end up leaving its overnight borrowing rate — which banks use as a guide for pricing their own loans — untouched at present levels for the rest of 2021.
“Inaction is action,” said ING Bank Manila senior analyst Nicholas Mapa of the monetary regulator’s most likely move while being “caught between a rock and a hard place” due to the unexpectedly high …
Keep on reading: ‘Inaction is action’ may be BSP’s monetary policy for 2021, says economist