Ukraine Central Bank Raises Rates to 30%

March 4, 2015 Share Print 0

Ukraine’s central bank has sharply raised interest rates from 19.5% to 30% in an effort to curb inflation and prop up its beleaguered currency.

The new benchmark refinancing rate takes effect on Wednesday.

It comes as the government in Kiev is seeking a $17.5bn (£11.4bn; €15.6bn) assistance programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Inflation is expected to hit at least 26% this year and the hryvnia has tumbled against the dollar.
The currency has lost 80% of its value since last April, when pro-Russian separatists took up arms in the country’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a month after Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula.

Last week, the hryvnia hit a record low of 33.75 to the dollar before recovering some ground.

via SOURCE

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.