Services experienced the highest annual increase at 3.4%, followed by food, alcohol, and tobacco at 2.5%. Non-energy industrial goods saw a more modest increase of 0.7%. Meanwhile, energy prices fell by 3.1% over the month, which helped to temper overall inflation pressures.
Markets remain fragile amid persistent geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which have pushed oil prices higher and revived concerns about inflation in Europe. While interest rates are expected to remain unchanged, attention could turn to the ECB's forward guidance and assessment of energy-driven price risks.
The European Central Bank (ECB) held its key interest rates unchanged following the February meeting of the Governing Council, in line with Cebr projections. This marks the fifth consecutive hold, despite a below-target inflation reading of 1.7% in January, the lowest level since 2021. The decision to hold rates also comes despite a recent Euro rally against the dollar, which is expected to add disinflationary pressure through cheaper imports and weigh on growth by making the bloc's exports more expensive.
This is not new news, of course, but many in the industry seem to be finally waking up to the hard truth that data-driven media buying, as we know it today, is severely under threat and has to change. Cookies power everything we do, from humble frequency capping through to complex multi-touch attribution models, ad personalisation and audience segmentation. They underpin most of the gains we've made in performance advertising, as well as brand advertising, over the past decade.
The European Central Bank said Friday it had fined French bank Credit Agricole €7.55 million ($9 million) for failing to properly identify climate change-related risks that could affect its balance sheet. "Credit Agricole did not sufficiently assess the materiality of its climate-related and environmental risks" by a deadline set after an investigation in 2024, the ECB said in a statement, adding the bank was late by "75 full days".
In an incisive analysis of the new age of predatory great powers, where might is increasingly asserted as right, Carney not only accurately defined the coarsening of international relations as a rupture, not a transition. He also outlined how liberal democratic middle powers such as Canada but also European countries must build coalitions to counter coercion and defend as much as possible of the principles of territorial integrity, the rule of law, free trade, climate action and human rights.
