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ECB sets ‘moderately lower pace’ for bond buying

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Christine-Lagarde

The European Central Bank (ECB) decided to leave its key interest rates unchanged and set a “moderately lower pace” for the Covid-19 pandemic-related bond buying.

“Based on a joint assessment of financing conditions and the inflation outlook, the Governing Council judges that favourable financing conditions can be maintained with a moderately lower pace of net asset purchases under the pandemic emergency purchase program (PEPP) than in the previous two quarters,” the ECB said in a statement on Thursday.

Earlier this year, after its March and June meetings, the ECB decided that purchases under the PEPP in the second and third quarters would be conducted at a significantly higher pace than during the first months of the year, reports Xinhua news agency.

Thursday’s announcement came as eurozone inflation surged to three percent in August, the highest in ten years, according to a flash estimate published last week.

The ECB also left other policy measures largely unchanged.

Eurozone key interest rates will remain at record low levels, with the base interest rate, marginal lending rate and deposit rate unchanged at 0.00 per cent, 0.25 per cent and minus 0.50 per cent, respectively.

The PEPP, first rolled out in March last year to cushion the impact from the pandemic and expanded twice thereafter, has a total envelope of 1.85 trillion euros ($2 trillion) and is set to run until at least the end of March 2022.

The 3 per cent rise in eurozone headline inflation in August, together with a jump in core inflation to 1.6 per cent, had largely exceeded analysts’ expectations.

At a press conference on Thursday, ECB President Christine Lagarde reiterated that the surge in inflation is expected to be temporary.

“Summing up, the euro area economy is clearly rebounding. However, the speed of the recovery continues to depend on the course of the pandemic and progress with vaccinations. The current rise in inflation is expected to be largely temporary and underlying price pressures will build up only gradually,” Lagarde told reporters.

According to the ECB, the inflation upswing mainly reflects the strong increase in oil prices since around the middle of last year; the reversal of the temporary value-added tax (VAT) reduction in Germany; delayed summer sales in 2020; and cost pressures due to supply chain issues — all of which should ease or fall out of the year-on-year inflation calculation over the course of 2022.

If supply bottlenecks last longer and feed through into higher than anticipated wage rises, price pressures could be more persistent, Lagarde said.

The ECB’s latest projections expect annual inflation in the eurozone to be 2.2 per cent in 2021, 1.7 per cent in 2022 and 1.5 percent in 2023, all revised upwards compared with the forecasts three months ago.

Lagarde also said policymakers believe that the eurozone’s growth will be back to the 2019 pre-pandemic level at the end of this year, which is two quarters earlier than initially anticipated.

The latest ECB staff projections foresee the eurozone’s real GDP to grow 5 per cent this year, 4.6 per cent in 2022 and 2.1 per cent in 2023.

Dutch bank ABN Amro said there was a little relief in the market that Thursday’s move is a slowdown rather than a taper.

It expects the PEPP to end in March 2022.

However, policy rates are likely to remain on hold through 2024, given the ECB’s symmetric 2 per cent inflation target and subdued inflation outlook in the medium term, according to the bank.

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US flight disruption: Air India advises passengers to check latest status

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New Delhi : Air India on Saturday advised passengers to check the latest status of their flights and plan their journey to the airport accordingly, amid massive disruption at the US airports. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop that had halted departures at US airports after a communications failure, though airlines warned that disruption and cancellations could continue.

“A nationwide ground stop is currently in effect across the US due to communication outages affecting air traffic operations. As a result, departures from airports across US are impacted, with possible consequential disruptions to Air India flights to and from the US,” Air India said in a statement posted on X. “Our teams continue to closely monitor the situation and will share updates as available,” it added. The cancellation of US flights happened after a communications problem affected air traffic operations. The notice announcing the cancellation did not specify the cause of the failure or say that airline schedules had returned to normal.

Earlier, the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center said the ground stop remained in effect across a large portion of the country, although some coastal facilities had been able to release international departures. In an update, American Airlines said some flights from certain airports were beginning to receive clearance to depart. At that point, most departures remained paused, and the airline expected further disruption, including unavoidable cancellations. American advised customers to check their flight status and review its travel alert for options. Its warning was issued before the FAA’s cancellation advisory. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told reporters earlier that officials had acted as a precaution following a telecommunications outage affecting the FAA. “There is no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack,” he said at the time. That preliminary assessment did not rule out a cyberattack.

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FBI warns AI tool can speed up cyberattacks

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Washington : The FBI has warned that cybercriminals are using an artificial intelligence-assisted security testing tool to accelerate attacks on organisations around the world, with some intrusions reaching privileged access in less than three hours. In an alert issued on Friday (local time), the bureau said malicious actors had used the open-source framework, known as ARTEX, since at least August to target organisations across sectors including finance, government, technology, defence, energy and health care. The FBI said the tool can automate several stages of an intrusion, from identifying potential targets to preparing or carrying out data theft. That speed can leave defenders less time to detect and respond to an attack, it said.

The alert said some intrusions progressed from initial targeting to privileged access in under three hours. According to the alert, the framework was originally intended for authorised security testing. Its developer removed the original online repository in October following reports of malicious use, but copies and variants remained available, the FBI said. The bureau said the tool could lower the technical barriers for conducting complex operations and allow attackers to pursue multiple targets at the same time. Organisations’ internet-facing applications, cloud infrastructure and systems connected to suppliers or partners were among the areas of concern identified in the alert.

The FBI cited financially motivated attacks on South Korean financial institutions that it said resulted in personal information being taken from approximately 67,000 people. It also described a separate supply-chain compromise affecting users of a cloud backup service, which it said enabled access to more than 2,250 downstream customer environments. The bureau encouraged organisations to review their exposure to the internet, strengthen identity and access controls, monitor unusual activity and protect credentials. It also urged organisations that identify suspicious activity to contact the FBI or report it through the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

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India’s forex reserves climb $2.49 billion to $719.5 billion, gold holdings surge to $104.8 billion

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India’s foreign exchange reserves rose by $2.49 billion to reach $719.547 billion in the week ended November 6, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday.

This increase follows consecutive weeks of decline, during which the reserves had slipped from $722.3 billion in the week ended October 17 to $717.057 billion by October 30.

The uptick in reserves was primarily driven by a sharp rise in gold holdings, which surged by $2.205 billion to $104.796 billion during the week, the RBI data showed.

Foreign currency assets, which form the largest component of India’s forex reserves, also rose by $232 million to $591.350 billion.

These assets are influenced by changes in the value of non-US currencies such as the euro, pound, and yen that are held in the reserves.

India’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) with the International Monetary Fund climbed by $52 million to $18.610 billion, while the country’s reserve position with the IMF increased by $1 million to $4.791 billion.

In rupee terms, the country’s total foreign exchange reserves stood at Rs 67,58,986 crore as of November 6.

Notably, the weekly increase in dollar terms came even as the reserves declined by Rs 49,742 crore in rupee terms, as per the data.

India’s forex reserves had previously touched an all-time high of $785.7 billion in the week ended September 4, following significant foreign currency inflows through a special concessional swap scheme for diaspora deposits.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the central bank eased the foreign exchange reporting requirements for small exporters and importers of services.

Under the amended Foreign Exchange Management (Export and Import of Goods and Services) Regulations, 2026, individual service exporters will be deemed to have submitted the Export Declaration Form (EDF) once they provide the required payment-related information to their authorised dealer bank for crediting the proceeds to their accounts.

For exporters other than resident individuals, the same treatment will apply if the inward remittance for the service is not more than Rs 10 lakh or its equivalent in foreign currency.

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