BSP GOVERNOR REACTS TO US FED RATE FREEZE‘No reason to tweak policy settings yet’The United States Federal Reserve’s decision to keep rates unchanged at its July 27 meeting indicates that there is no reason for Philippine monetary authorities to tweak policy settings for now, the governor of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said. Thus, ANZ expects the central bank to remain on the sidelines with regard to its interest rate policy and only tighten its policy rate by the second quarter of 2017. The central bank awarded P50 billion of its TDF on Wednesday’s auction, rejecting most of the total P180 billion tenders received. The central bank earlier said that the banking system is currently awash with P1 trillion in excess liquidity, which creates no pressure to lower the RRR for banks. Steady rates until June 2017ANZ Research economist Eugenia Victorino said the think tank has shifted its forecast for a policy rate increase by the BSP to June 2017.

Source: Manila Times July 28, 2016 12:33 UTC