Norway’s Central Bank Speeds Up Move to Publish Rate Minutes

(Bloomberg) — Norway’s central bank will boost transparency of its monetary policy decisions from next week, expediting the plan after a year of close scrutiny into the credibility of its communications.

The central bank in Oslo will begin publishing a summary of the discussions that take place at its rate-setting meetings starting with the March 26 announcement, it said in a statement Friday. The summary will be made public at the same time as the rate decision.

The format will evolve as it gains further experience, the central bank said.

With the new communications, Norges Bank follows peers such as the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Riksbank of neighboring Sweden in sharing details from its eight rate-setting meetings each year.

The plan was first unveiled by Governor Ida Wolden Bache in her annual address, though she said the move would happen “in the course of the year.”

Going into the rate meeting last March, Norwegian officials had explicitly stated they’d likely lower borrowing costs then — only for a sudden spike in inflation to derail those plans. While most economists accurately predicted they’d hold off on a reduction, the central bank began giving a more cautious outlook, flagging moves “in the course of 2025.”

Come June, economists were surprised by the timing of the cut. A majority of analysts also didn’t expect another reduction in September, even as the central bank has published numerical interest-rate forecasts — still given by only a few peers — since 2005.

“The intention is to provide more nuances and details regarding the monetary policy deliberations than has been the case so far, but Committee members’ names will be omitted,” Norges Bank said.

The Norwegian central bank isn’t the only institution to increase transparency in the past year. In September, the Swiss National Bank said it would introduce a so-called summary of its quarterly monetary policy rate discussions.

(Updates with details, background from first paragraph.)

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