ECB is finished with rate hikes ‘for now,’ official says

The European Central Bank is done with interest-rate increases for the time being, Governing Council member Boris Vujcic said. “We have finished with the process of raising interest rates for now,” Vujcic told Croatian state broadcaster HRT1 in a TV interview on Sunday. “At this moment we see that inflation is falling, we have a disinflation process. And after we conducted a series of measures to dampen lending, it has fallen.” The Croat central bank chief spoke three days after the ECB kept rates unchanged for the first time in more than a year, pausing an unprecedented tightening campaign. President Christine Lagarde has indicated that another hike isn’t currently required and markets and economists expect borrowing costs to stay at this level well into 2024. Euro-area inflation peaked at 10.6 percent in October 2022, but has since slowed markedly. Data on Tuesday are expected to show it weakened to 3.1 percent this month, far closer than before to the ECB’s 2 percent goal. Vujcic said that he’s confident that inflation will hit that target by 2025 — comments that are in line with the central bank’s most recent economic forecasts.