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MNB remained dovish at its May Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting this week, but there was the absence of any fresh dovish signals, which made markets wonder whether or not MNB was going to reconsider its ultra-dovish view after the next Inflation Report.
However, such ideas were dismissed over the past couple of days by remarks or actions by key policymakers: First, Deputy Governor and policy architect, Marton Nagy, remarked that the benchmark rate could stay on hold not only through 2018 but through 2019 or even 2020. He hinted that MNB will probably follow the blueprint of major central banks in first unwinding various unconventional measures before hiking the main rate.
Secondly, MNB launched the second phase of its Market-based Lending Scheme (MLS), which includes various measures to further incentivise bank lending to SME's. In other words, MNB is still launching fresh unconventional easing programmes.
"And if we go by the guidance that these would first be unwound before rates were normalised, we could be in for a long wait before we see higher interest rates in Hungary. This strengthens our forecast of steadily higher EUR/HUF over the coming year," Commerzbank commented in its latest research report.
