Thursday, June 16, 2022 – 12:08 am
ABU DHABI, June 15 / WAM / Central banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries raised interest rates, following the US Federal Reserve’s decision today to raise interest rates.
The US Federal Reserve announced that it will raise interest rates by 75 basis points, the largest increase since 1994, bringing the short-term federal funds interest rates between 1.5% and 1.75%.
And the Saudi Central Bank decided to raise the rate of “repo” agreements by 0.5% from 1.75% to 2.25%, as well as raising the rate of “reverse repo” agreements by 0.5% from 1.25% to 1.75% in line with the goal of the Saudi Central Bank to maintain Monetary and financial stability, and in light of local and global developments.
The Central Bank of Bahrain announced raising the basic interest rate on one-week deposits from 1.75% to 2.5%, while it was decided to raise the interest rate on overnight deposits from 1.5% to 2.25%, and raising the interest rate on deposits for a period of four weeks from 2.5% to 3.25%. In addition to raising the interest rate imposed by the Central Bank on retail banks in return for lending facilities from 3% to 3.75%.
The Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Kuwait raised the discount rate by a quarter of a percentage point from 2% to 2.25%, and it was decided to make an adjustment at varying rates in the rates of intervention in the money market that are currently applied to all periods of the interest rate structure, including repurchases (repo) operations, bonds and securitization The Central Bank of Kuwait, the system for accepting time deposits, direct intervention instruments, in addition to public debt instruments.
The Qatar Central Bank raised the repurchase rate (repo) by 75 basis points to 2.5%, while raising the lending rate by 50 basis points to 3.25%.
WAM/Nasser Al-Jabri/Ahmed Al-Boutli