ECB Base Interest Rate at 4.5%... Held Steady for 5 Consecutive Times (Update)

The European Central Bank (ECB) has kept its key interest rate steady at 4.5% per annum.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

On the 11th (local time), the ECB announced at its monetary policy meeting that it would maintain the key interest rate at this level, and also keep the deposit rate and marginal lending rate unchanged at 4.00% and 4.75% per annum, respectively.

As a result, the interest rate gap between South Korea (key interest rate 3.50%) and the Eurozone (20 countries using the euro) remained at 1.00 percentage point.

The ECB raised interest rates ten consecutive times from July 2022 until September last year. Since then, from October last year until this meeting, it has kept rates unchanged in five consecutive meetings.

In its monetary policy statement, the ECB said, "The ECB’s key interest rates are judged to contribute significantly to the ongoing disinflation (slowing of inflation)," and added, "We will follow a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach." It further stated, "We will not pre-commit to a specific interest rate path."