The European Central Bank (ECB) is taking care of the monetary policy of the Euro-zone (countries which do use the Euro) since 1999. The ECB did however not take over from the Central Banks (like the Bank of England), but does cooperate with them. One of the main tasks of the ECB is safeguarding price stability in the Euro-zone. The objective is to keep inflation around but below a rate of 2% a year.
The main refinancing rate or minimum bid rate is the interest rate which banks do have to pay when they borrow money from the ECB. Banks do so when they are short on liquidities.
There is a strong response of interbank interest rates (like the Euribor) to changes in the ECB refinancing rate. This does imply that the ECB interest rate can can be used as a tool to influence market interest rates. Here you will find a table with the last 10 ECB refinancing rate changes as well as a graph which does show all changes since the launch of the Euro.
| 10/17/2024 | 3.400 % |
| 9/12/2024 | 3.650 % |
| 6/6/2024 | 4.250 % |
| 9/14/2023 | 4.500 % |
| 7/27/2023 | 4.250 % |
| 6/15/2023 | 4.000 % |
| 5/4/2023 | 3.750 % |
| 3/16/2023 | 3.500 % |
| 2/2/2023 | 3.000 % |
| 12/15/2022 | 2.500 % |
In case you are interested in the development of interest rates of various central banks we would like to refer to global-rates.com for a summary of the current interest rates of a large number of central banks.