LISBON (Reuters) – The European Central Bank’s key interest rate is approaching its peak, but further “adjustments” are still necessary, ECB Governing Council member Mario Centeno said on Wednesday, expecting rates to start easing at some point during next year.
“We must be approaching the terminal rate,” he told a news conference, adding that the ECB could reach the peak in June or July, always watchful of the inflation outlook.
He said that the monetary policy was already “at the peak of its cycle”, but suggested that smaller adjustments were still under way.
When those are over, ECB’s policy will remain tight “for some more time, but without raising rates, which should start to come down at some point during the year 2024”, he said.
The ECB slowed the pace of its interest rate increases to 25 basis points on Thursday but signalled more tightening to come in what markets expect to be the final stage of its fight against inflation, with another 40 basis points of increases predicted in the ECB’s 3.25% deposit rate.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Writing by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Alison Williams)
