Through the next nine quarters, to the end of March 1997, interest rates never went much above 10 per cent, but the exchange rate continued to increase until the TWI reached 69. As a consequence, lending by major financial institutions to the private sector continued growing at rates more than double that of nominal GDP growth.
While the Bank lowered the interest rate level to virtually zero by reducing the policy interest rate to 0.1 percent at the end of 2008, given the outlook for economic activity and prices described earlier, the Bank considers it necessary to maintain the extremely accommodative financial environment.