BSP likely to keep rates unchanged -- Medalla

Interest rates will likely remain unchanged when the central bank’s Monetary Board meets on June 22, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Felipe Medalla said on Thursday.

Medalla told reporters on Thursday afternoon that while inflation has been declining for the past four months, it is still best to prepare for potential economic headwinds.

“My own view is the pause is very likely to continue because the recent data actually is consistent with it. But of course, I cannot speak for the Monetary Board,” Medalla said.

The BSP has forecast the inflation rate to ease to below 4 percent by September or October. Despite this, Medalla said a cut in interest rates is still not on the horizon.

“Kung talagang siguradong-sigurado na tayong na-attain na ‘yong target very very firmly, we’ll cut. Pero kung tingin nating alanganin pa, then hindi pa rin pwede. In other words, it will depend on the data and it will depend on which risks we are afraid of,” Medalla said.

Next to the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), established on August 1, 1851, as El Ban-co Español Filipino de Isabel II and the country’s oldest, Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros, a Catholic outfit, is the second oldest, organized in 1882 and is the first savings bank in the archipelago. Seven years earlier, Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), a foreign lending institution, started operating in Binondo in November 1875.

In Davao City, the Monte de Piedad branch used to occupy the space beside the lot of the now defunct Mila’s Tailoring, which is now leased to Medisense Laboratory Clinic, Inc., right next to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ compound along Claveria (C.M. Recto) Street.

The idea of having a charitable banking institution was