Brown Brothers Harriman expects four central banks to keep policy rates unchanged at meetings this week. These are the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the National Bank of Poland (NBP), Peru’s central bank (BCRP), and the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The RBI is expected to hold at 5.25% for a second meeting on Wednesday. It may move its stance from neutral to restrictive due to a weaker inflation outlook.
Central Banks Expected To Hold
The NBP is expected to hold at 3.75% on Thursday after a 25bps cut on 4 March. Market pricing in swaps implies 60bps of hikes over the next 12 months.
Peru’s BCRP is expected to hold at 4.25% for a seventh meeting on Thursday. Headline and core CPI inflation rose in March above the bank’s 1 to 3% target range.
The BOK is expected to hold at 2.50% for a seventh meeting on Friday. Its six-month rate projection may shift to show hikes rather than a steady-rate path.
The Reserve Bank of India is expected to hold its repo rate at 6.0% this week, but the risk is not symmetrical. After March CPI data showed inflation re-accelerating to 4.9%, we see a risk of a more hawkish tone from the governor. This is a similar setup to what we saw back in 2025, when the board weighed a shift to a restrictive stance due to a worsening inflation outlook.
Forward Guidance In Focus
Poland’s central bank will likely keep its policy rate at 4.50%, but the focus is on the forward guidance from Governor Glapinski. The swaps market is currently pricing in over 50 basis points of hikes in the next year as wage growth remains stubbornly high. This echoes the dynamic from March 2025, when the swaps curve also priced in significant hikes that traders had to watch closely.
We anticipate Peru’s central bank will pause its easing cycle and hold rates at 5.00% for a second straight meeting. Upside inflation risks are re-emerging, with the latest March reading hitting 3.2%, putting it just above the bank’s 1-3% target band. We saw this same kind of inflation threat back in 2025, which ultimately kept the BCRP on hold for seven consecutive meetings.
The Bank of Korea is set to keep its policy rate unchanged at 3.50%, a level it has now maintained for over two years. The key risk for traders is a hawkish surprise in their forward projections, especially with the Korean won recently weakening past the 1400 per dollar psychological level. This reflects the same potential for a hawkish pivot we monitored in 2025, where the board considered signaling future hikes instead of a steady outlook.
