LONDON: Central banks are clearly watching the Iran war oil shock like hawks. The surge in oil prices, driven by supply disruption from more thana week of war in the Middle East, is already challenging central banks' stretched mandates. Others suggest "looking through" volatile inflation, much like central banks did post-pandemic - mistakenly, in hindsight. But there's another consideration under a third hat most major central banks now wear - financial stability. We have already seen rumblings of the latter over the past week with rising government borrowing rates and jolts to central banks' interest rate horizons.

Source: The Star March 10, 2026 09:10 UTC