This was weeks after the first rate hike in the current round, from 4 per cent to 4.40 per cent, in an off-cycle meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). It happened barely 12 hours before the US Federal Reserve raised its policy rate by 50 basis points (bps), the highest in 22 years, to tackle the worst inflation in four decades. In the US, the decision to raise the rate followed a 25 bps hike in March 2022, a first since late 2019. One bps is a hundredth of a percentage point.