Rate hike push slows in July as Chile marks turn of the EM cycle

By Karin Strohecker and Vincent Flasseur

LONDON (Reuters) – The pace and scale of interest rate hikes across major developed and emerging economies shifted into a lower gear in July with policy makers adopting a more cautious approach in the face of varied inflation rates and a lacklustre global growth backdrop.

Three of the six central banks overseeing the 10 most heavily traded currencies that met in July hiked rates, while the other three kept their benchmarks unchanged, Reuters data showed. That compares to seven hikes across nine meetings in June.

In July, the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada and the European Central Bank lifted their key rates by a cumulative 75 basis points, taking the 2023 year-to-date tally for G10 central banks to a total of 1,025 bps across 31 hikes.

With no rate setting meetings for many major banks such as the Fed and ECB scheduled, August looks set to be a quiet month though the trajectory for moves beyond that was uncertain.

“The Fed and ECB left the door open for additional tightening, but a Fed hike in a still very robust U.S. economy is much more likely than one by the ECB in an ailing euro area,” said Christian Keller, head of economics research at Barclays (LON:).

Across developing economies, more evidence of a turning in the cycle emerged with Chile becoming in July the first major central bank in Latin America to cut interest rates by 100 bps, following in the footsteps of smaller peers Costa Rica and Uruguay which had lowered benchmarks in recent months.

“Chile announced a larger-than-expected rate cut, and is the first emerging market to jump on the easing bandwagon in the current cycle,” said Charu Chanana, market strategist at Saxo.

“The move could be a catalyst to kickstart a broader EM easing cycle, as they went early into the tightening cycles and brought inflation under control.”

Twelve out of 18 central banks in the Reuters sample of developing economies had interest rate setting meetings in July. However, nine central banks opted to keep policy unchanged, with rate hikes coming from Turkey and Russia – two countries whose monetary policy circles are determined by domestic dynamics rather than global trends.

Faced with a weak rouble fuelling inflation pressures, Russia’s central bank hiked its key interest rate by a greater-than-expected 100 basis points to 8.5% in July while Turkey’s policy makers lifted the benchmark by 250 basis points to 17.5% in their quest to steer the economy onto a more orthodox track.

The year-to-date tally for emerging markets stands at 1,725 bps of tightening across 24 hikes and – more than half way through the year – well below the pace and scale seen the 2022, where central banks in developing economies delivered 7,425 bps across 92 hikes.

On the rate cutting side, emerging market central banks have seen three cuts reducing interest rates by 160 bps in total.

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