South Korea's base rate stood at 3% after an Oct. 22 hold, with the next rate-setting meeting scheduled for Nov. 26, according to the Bank of Korea's Economic Statistics System.
The decision interrupted two consecutive rate increases in July and August. Together, those increases lifted the rate by half a percentage point from the level maintained in May.
Consumer prices rose 2.9% in September from a year earlier, Statistics Korea figures available through the central bank's statistics system showed. That compared with a twelve-month increase of 3.1% in August, a decline of 0.2 percentage point in the annual inflation rate.
The lower inflation reading meant prices continued to rise, but at a slower pace than in the previous month's annual comparison. It did not mean consumer prices fell between August and September.
The central bank held its base rate at 3% on Oct. 22, leaving it at the level set on Aug. 27. At that August meeting, it raised the rate by 25 basis points, or a quarter of a percentage point, to 3%.
The August increase followed a 25-basis-point rise to 2.75% on July 16. Before those two increases, the central bank held the rate at 2.5% on May 28.
The sequence leaves the base rate half a percentage point above its May level ahead of the November meeting. The October observation in the central bank's statistics system also puts the rate at 3%.
The Federal Reserve's federal funds target range stood at 3.75% to 4% on Oct. 23. Its upper bound exceeded the Korean base rate by 1 percentage point, comparing the top of the US range with Korea's single policy rate.
The Korean 91-day monetary stabilisation bond rate was quoted at 3.17% on Oct. 23, about 17 basis points above the base rate. The Korea Overnight Financing Repo rate, an overnight financing benchmark, stood at 3.04%.
The market-implied calculation assigned a 100% weight to a quarter-point increase across the 91-day window, which included one rate-setting meeting. It assigned zero weight to either an unchanged rate or a quarter-point cut.
Those weights describe the market-implied reading of short-term rates, rather than a forecast or a central bank commitment. The 17-basis-point spread covers the full 91-day period, while the calculation expresses the implied change across the meeting within that window.
The Nov. 26 meeting is the next scheduled occasion for the Monetary Policy Board to set the base rate.
