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# ECB Cuts Deposit Rate to 3.00% in Fourth Reduction of 2024 and Signals Further Easing in 2025
- URL: https://www.theglobalbanker.com/ecb-cuts-deposit-rate-3-00-fourth-reduction-2024-signals-further-easing-2025/
- Published: 2024-12-12T15:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-01T17:12:00.000Z
- Description: The ECB cut its deposit facility rate by 25bp to 3.00% — its fourth reduction of 2024 — and dropped language about keeping rates restrictive, signalling continued easing into 2025.
- Author: TGB Editorial Team
- Tags: Central Banks, Europe, #archive

The European Central Bank cut its deposit facility rate by 25 basis points to 3.00% on 12 December 2024, delivering its fourth rate reduction of the year. The decision, taken at the ECB's final scheduled monetary policy meeting of 2024, was accompanied by a change to the Council's forward guidance.

The ECB removed its long-standing reference to keeping interest rates "sufficiently restrictive" for as long as necessary to return inflation to the 2% target. President Christine Lagarde and her colleagues declined to pre-commit to a specific pace or magnitude of future cuts.

#### STAFF PROJECTIONS REVISED DOWNWARD

Alongside the rate decision, the ECB published updated macroeconomic projections from its staff, which revised down both growth and inflation forecasts relative to the September round of estimates. 

Staff now saw headline inflation averaging 2.4% in 2024, 2.1% in 2025 and 1.9% in 2026, with growth of 0.7% in 2024, 1.1% in 2025 and 1.4% in 2026\. The ECB said it would follow a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach and was not pre-committing to a particular rate path.

#### CUMULATIVE EASING REACHES 100 BASIS POINTS

The December cut brings the total reduction in the ECB's deposit rate over the course of 2024 to 100 basis points.