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The Bank of England focused on fighting inflation, announcing an 11th consecutive interest rate increase Thursday despite concerns about the economic fallout from troubles in the global financial system. Britain's central bank boosted its key rate by a quarter-percentage point to 4.25 per cent, a day after the US Federal Reserve approved a similar move to tame inflation that is crimping household budgets and slowing economic growth. The decision by the bank's Monetary Policy Committee came after the UK statistics agency surprised policymakers Wednesday by reporting that inflation accelerated to 10.4 per cent in February, driven by the cost of food, clothing and dining out. Before the figures were released, many analysts had expected the Bank of England to keep rates on hold following the collapse of two US banks and the ensuing troubles at Switzerland's Credit Suisse, which forced a hastily arranged takeover by rival UBS. The bank will continue to monitor closely indications of ...
The Swiss central bank hiked its key interest rate on Thursday and insisted that a government-orchestrated takeover of troubled Credit Suisse by rival bank UBS ended the financial turmoil. In a statement, the Swiss National Bank said it is providing large amounts of support for the deal to merge Switzerland's biggest banks and that the late Sunday announcement by the federal government, financial regulators and the central bank put a halt to the crisis. An insolvency of Credit Suisse would have had severe consequences for national and international financial stability and for the Swiss economy, said Thomas Jordan, chairman of the Swiss central bank's governing board. Taking this risk would have been irresponsible. The hastily arranged, USD 3.25 billion deal aimed to stem the upheaval in the global financial system after the collapse of two US banks and jitters about long-running troubles at Credit Suisse led shares of Switzerland's second-largest bank to tank and customers to pull o
The governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Nandalal Weerasinghe has cited the lack of independence of the apex bank in determining the monetary policy as a reason for the country's unprecedented economic crisis. The Sri Lankan government in May last year declared a debt default on over USD 51 billion in foreign loans -- a first in the country's history. Weerasinghe made the statement on Thursday while talking about a proposed bill aimed to provide autonomy to the Central Bank without any undue influence from the fiscal authorities or the government. "In 2020, 2021 and 2022, the policy interest and exchange rates were fixed without the Central Bank," Weerasinghe said. The exchange rate was fixed at Rs 203 leading to the total loss of our reserves and bankruptcy, he said, recalling the situation prevailing at the time of his takeover last year from his predecessor Ajith Cabraal. He said it was important to let the Central Bank act independently to determine the policy interest ra