South Korea's base rate remained at 3% after the Oct. 22 decision, with the next rate-setting meeting scheduled for Nov. 26, the Bank of Korea said through its Economic Statistics System.
The hold followed quarter-point increases at the two preceding meetings. It left the benchmark half a percentage point above the rate set in May.
The central bank raised the rate by 25 basis points (hundredths of a percentage point) to 2.75% on July 16, then increased it by another 25 basis points to 3% on Aug. 27.
Before those increases, the central bank held the rate at 2.5% on May 28. The Oct. 22 decision kept the August increase in place through the next scheduled meeting.
Consumer prices rose 2.9% in September from a year earlier, down from 3.1% in August, Statistics Korea said in figures available through the central bank's statistics system.
The annual inflation rate fell by 0.2 percentage point between the two months. September's reading measures prices against the same month a year earlier, rather than against August.
The US Federal Reserve's federal funds target range stood at 3.75% to 4% as of Oct. 21. Its upper bound exceeded the Korean base rate by 1 percentage point.
That comparison uses the top of the US range and South Korea's single benchmark rate. The gap does not compare the Korean rate with the midpoint or lower bound of the US range.
The central bank's short-term market figures put the 91-day monetary stabilisation bond yield at 3.17% on Oct. 22, about 17 basis points above the base rate.
Monetary stabilisation bonds are debt securities issued by the central bank. The quoted yield covers a period longer than the interval before the next scheduled rate decision.
Across that 91-day window, the supplied market-implied calculation assigned a 100% weight to a quarter-point increase, averaged across one meeting. It assigned zero weight to either a hold or a quarter-point cut.
Those weights describe market-implied pricing across the full period. They are not a central bank forecast or an announced decision for the November meeting.
The Korea Overnight Financing Repo rate (Repo is short for repurchase agreement), an overnight borrowing rate backed by securities, stood at 3.05% in the central bank's supplied market figures.
The statistical observation for the base rate refers to September. The separate Oct. 22 policy decision confirms that the central bank subsequently held the same 3% rate.
The Monetary Policy Board's next scheduled decision is on Nov. 26, following the October hold and the two increases in July and August.
