The Monetary Council of the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) decided to keep the central bank O/N deposit rate at -0.05pc and the base rate at 0.90pc at a monthly policy meeting. The Council has left the rates unchanged for more than half a year and have tweaked monetary policy on a quarterly basis, coinciding with the publication of the central bank’s Inflation Report.

After the latest Inflation Report was published in September, the rate-setters decided to set the amount of liquidity to be crowded out from central bank instruments in the fourth quarter at HUF 300bn-500bn, up from HUF 200bn-400bn in the previous quarter. The rate-setters take the level into account when setting the stock of NBH swap instruments, one of the central bank’s main policy tools.