ECB set to raise rates by 50 bp in Feb and March, Knot says

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -The European Central Bank (ECB) is set to raise interest rates by 50 basis points in both February and March and will continue to raise rates in the months after, ECB governing council member Klaas Knot said in an interview with Dutch broadcaster WNL on Sunday.

“Expect us to raise rates by 0.5% in February and March and expect us to not be done by then and that more steps will follow in May and June,” Knot said.

In a separate interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa published on Sunday, Knot said it was “too early to tell” if the ECB could slow down the pace of its rate increases by the summer.

“At some point, of course, the risks surrounding the inflation outlook will become more balanced,” he said.

“That would also be a time in which we could make a further step down from 50 to 25 basis points, for instance. But we are still far away from that.”

(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Federico MaccioniEditing by Tomasz Janowski)