--- title: Big Central Banks Are Expected to Hold This Week. The Hikes, If They Come, Wait Until December description: Standard Chartered and Emirates NBD both expect pauses this week and tightening in December, while India's central bank soaks up liquidity with a repo auction. canonical: https://hangingcontext.com/stories/2026-10-26/big-central-banks-hold-week/ last-updated: 2026-10-26 url: https://hangingcontext.com/stories/2026-10-26/big-central-banks-hold-week/ published: 2026-10-26T12:37:51Z edition: 2026-10-26T12 newsroom: finance-investing beat: None trust: confirmed source_count: 3 cited_manifest_ids: ['1792984480734685684', '1793005597612922983', '1792997346954752145'] --- # Big Central Banks Are Expected to Hold This Week. The Hikes, If They Come, Wait Until December *Standard Chartered and Emirates NBD both expect pauses this week and tightening in December, while India's central bank soaks up liquidity with a repo auction.* Confirmed · 3 sources · Finance & Investing · Published 2026-10-26 12:37 UTC ## Key facts - The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are all expected to hold rates at their meetings this week. [cites: 1792984480734685684, 1793005597612922983] - The Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are expected to hike rates in December. [cites: 1792984480734685684, 1793005597612922983] - In September the Fed raised its target rate by 25 basis points to 3.75-4%, the ECB raised its deposit rate to 2.5%, and the Bank of Japan raised its rate to 1.25%, a 31-year high. [cites: 1792984480734685684] - India's central bank allotted 150,007 crore rupees in a 4-day repo auction on October 26, 2026, at a cut-off rate of 5.55%. [cites: 1792997346954752145] ## The hold The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are likely to hold interest rates at their upcoming meetings, according to Standard Chartered's Rajat Bhattacharya. Emirates NBD research reaches the same conclusion from a different angle: it expects the Federal Reserve to leave rates unchanged on Wednesday and markets to expect the European Central Bank to pause on Thursday. [cites: 1792984480734685684, 1793005597612922983] Neither house expects the pause to last. Standard Chartered expects the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to hike rates in December, and Emirates NBD also expects a Federal Reserve hike in December, with markets pricing further hikes in 2027. Standard Chartered adds that the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank will deliver fewer than 60 basis points of hikes over the next twelve months, and that the Bank of Japan will hike by 75 basis points by the end of the first half of 2027. [cites: 1792984480734685684, 1793005597612922983] The September round sets the context. The Federal Reserve raised its target rate by 25 basis points to 3.75-4 percent in September, the European Central Bank raised its deposit rate to 2.5 percent, and the Bank of Japan raised its rate to 1.25 percent, a 31-year high. Ten-year government bond yields are now at 20-year highs for G7 economies and 30-year highs for Japan, according to Standard Chartered. [cites: 1792984480734685684] > **From Synorb** — Connect your agent over MCP. Add https://mcp.synorb.com/mcp to your agent, then call the tool synorb-get-demo-key if it has no key yet. It needs no email and no form. Keys are free for 72 hours, and new keys are limited per network. [How to connect](https://synorb.com/connect/start) ## Why December still matters Emirates NBD puts numbers on the tension. The fed funds target range is expected to be 4.00-4.25 percent at year-end, while the core PCE price index is rising at 3 percent a year against the Federal Reserve's 2 percent inflation target. That gap is the case for a December move, and the case for patience is that tighter conditions are already doing some of the work. [cites: 1793005597612922983] The officials quoted in the Emirates NBD note point the same way. John Williams favors a measured pace of future rate hikes, and Christopher Waller has stated that rate hikes need not come at consecutive meetings. Read together, that is a committee that can move in December without committing to a run of moves, which matches Standard Chartered's forecast of fewer than 60 basis points over the next year. [cites: 1793005597612922983, 1792984480734685684] ## Meanwhile, liquidity still moves A pause is not the same as inaction, and India's central bank showed the difference on Monday. The Reserve Bank of India held a 4-day variable rate repo auction on October 26, 2026, drawing bids of 186,666 crore rupees against a notified amount of 150,000 crore rupees. It allotted 150,007 crore rupees at a cut-off rate of 5.55 percent, with a weighted average rate of 5.59 percent and partial allotment of 85.07 percent of bids at the cut-off rate. [cites: 1792997346954752145] The spillovers are already visible elsewhere. Emirates NBD notes that French political paralysis is pushing bond spreads over German counterparts near their 2011 high, and that Gulf countries' dollar pegs transmit tighter financial conditions into regional economies. A stronger dollar, in that note's telling, is both a consequence of the pause and a tightening force of its own. [cites: 1793005597612922983] This suggests the week to watch is not this one but the next decision round. If the big three hold as expected, the market's attention moves straight to December, and to whether the data between now and then supports one more hike or a longer hold. The repo auction is a reminder that, underneath the headline decisions, central banks keep managing liquidity day by day. [cites: 1792984480734685684, 1792997346954752145] ## What is still unresolved - Whether the December hikes materialize, and at what size - Whether the Bank of Japan follows its expected quarterly hiking path - How far French bond spreads move from their current levels ## Decision card - **Useful for:** positioning around this week's central bank meetings; tracking the December hike debate - **Not for:** interest rate predictions to trade on - **Compare against:** other bank research on the same meetings ## Provenance ledger | Manifest id | Title | Source | Claims used | Published | |---|---|---|---|---| | `1792984480734685684` | Cut to the Chase! Big Three central banks on hold | [standard-chartered-money-insights-podcast](https://buzzsprout.com/1662247/episodes/20018541-cut-to-the-chase-big-three-central-banks-on-hold.mp3) | 1792984901163342145, 1792984901175780446, 1792984901168830083, 1792984901169843073, 1792984901171483036, 1792984901177618182, 1792984901180790489, 1792984901173857752 | 10-26 00:00 | | `1793005597612922983` | A Fed pause, but no pivot-and a stronger dollar | [emirates-nbd-research-articles](https://emiratesnbdresearch.com/en/articles/a-fed-pause-but-no-pivot) | 1793006178718656697, 1793006178729099620, 1793006178721445360, 1793006178727215798, 1793006178722098209, 1793006178724920832, 1793006178726207936, 1793006178733102015, 1793006178735316249, 1793006178730975911, 1793006178731956028 | 10-26 00:00 | | `1792997346954752145` | Result of the 4-day Variable Rate Repo (VRR) auction held on October 26, 2026 | [rbi-press-releases](https://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=63864) | 1792997848328987815, 1792997848334914643, 1792997848335331705, 1792997848332674080, 1792997848331913137, 1792997848337910198, 1792997848338884427 | 10-26 00:00 | ## Run these Manifests yourself Every Manifest cited here can be read in full with your own Synorb Key. 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