"The risk of another double rate hike is clearly reduced," Handelsbanken said in an Aug. 11 note to clients. Norges Bank's monetary policy committee has said it will likely hike the policy rate to 4.25% in the course of this year to prevent a continued rapid rise in prices and wages that could see inflation become entrenched. The European Central Bank last month raised its key policy rate to 3.75%, but a narrow majority of economists polled by Reuters expect the ECB to temporarily pause its rate-hiking campaign at its September meeting. All 31 economists polled in the Aug. 10-15 period said Norges Bank would announce on Thursday that it will increase its policy rate by 25 bps to 4.00%. The poll's median prediction showed that the policy rate is expected to hit a peak of 4.25% later in the third quarter, although some predicted it could rise to 4.50% by the end of the year.

---

Persons: Handelsbanken, Terje Solsvik, Vijayalakshmi Srinivasan, Pai Sujith, Susan Fenton Organizations: Reuters, Norges, bps, Norges Bank, European Central Bank, ECB, Thomson Locations: OSLO, Norwegian, Bengaluru