UOB Group’s Senior Economist Julia Goh and Economist Loke Siew Ting comment on the recent rate hike by the BSP.

Key Takeaways

“As expected, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) continued to normalise its monetary policy rates today (18 Aug) with an additional 50bps hike. This brings the overnight reverse repurchase (RRP) rate to 3.75%, overnight deposit rate to 3.25%, and lending rate to 4.25%. Today’s interest rate hike marked the fourth back-to-back rate increases with a cumulative 175bps since May.”

“The Monetary Board (MB) judged that further monetary policy action is necessary to anchor inflation expectations and prevent a further breach in the inflation target over the policy horizon. The strong domestic economic growth in 1H22 also gave the central bank the flexibility to act against inflation pressures. It expects the national headline inflation to jump further to 5.4% this year (from its Jun’s estimate of 5.0%, UOB est: 5.0%) before decelerating to 4.0% in 2023 (from Jun’s estimate of 4.2%, UOB est: 4.0%) and 3.2% in 2024 (from Jun’s estimate of 3.3%).”

“Overall, the monetary policy statement and BSP Governor’s comments at the press briefing today indicated that the MB continues to the leave the door open for additional rate hikes. That said, BSP has almost fully unwound its collective 200bps rate cuts in the pandemic year of 2020. Ongoing uncertainties particularly global recession risks into 2023 and a tentative retreat in global oil prices could also lead the central bank to pause its rate hikes soon. Thus, we stick to our call for BSP to hike its policy rates by another 25bps in Sep and thereafter keep the RRP rate at 4.00% through 4Q22 and 2023, unless both global and domestic environments move in unexpected directions.”