Monetary Board of NBS kept referential interest rate at 10%

The Monetary Board of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) made the decision today (November 13, 2009) to keep the referential interest rate at 10% per year.

According to the announcement by NBS (www.nbs.rs), the next meeting of the Monetary Board will be held on December 4th.

The referential interest rate has been lowered by 7.75% since the beginning of year 2009 - from 17.75% to current 10%.

The Monetary Board made the decision to lower the referential interest rate by 1%, to 10%, at the meeting on November 5th. The rate was previously reduced by 1% on October 8th (to 11%) and July 10th (to 12%).

The National Bank of Serbia uses interest rate on two-week repo operations as the referential interest rate. In repo operations, NBS sells securities with the obligation to buy them back with interest after certain time.