Banxico decides Thursday with rate at 6.50% as a cut is debated
September's minutes show one board member open to lowering the rate and another who wants it held. Inflation rose to 3.62% in early October.
Banco de México, the country's central bank, known as Banxico, announces its next interest rate decision at 13:00 Mexico City time on Thursday, Nov. 5, according to its calendarPDF. The benchmark overnight interbank rate, which anchors the cost of credit in Mexico, stands at 6.50%.
The board held it there unanimouslyPDF on Sept. 24 and said its next decisions will hinge on continued disinflation, how much of the exchange rate passes through to consumer prices, slack in the economy and inflation expectations.
The minutes of that meeting, released Oct. 8, do not say who argued what, but they show two readings:
- One member saw grounds to discuss a "fine-tuning" cut, though not as a decision made in advance, only as a debate that should stay open.
- Another wants policy kept at current levels "for a prolonged time." If inflation does not settle firmly near the 3% target, this member warned, the board may need to discuss moving in step with the rate increases of the U.S. Federal Reserve, which raised its rate in September to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%.
Prices have climbed since. Mexico's national consumer price index, the INPC, which the statistics agency INEGI uses to track how consumer prices change, rose 3.62% from a year earlier in the first half of October 2026, up from 3.42% in the first half of September.
The jump came from the most volatile prices. Non-core inflation was 3.08% annually, with energy and government-set rates up 1.85% from the previous fortnight, largely because a summer electricity subsidy ended in 18 cities. Core inflation, which leaves those prices out, was 3.78%, just under September's 3.79%.
Analysts disagree. Finamex, Bankaool and UBS forecast a cut of 25 basis points, to 6.25%. In Citi's Oct. 20 expectations survey, 25 of 37 specialists expected the rate to stay at 6.50% for the rest of 2026 and all of 2027.
The decision moves the cost of credit cards, mortgages and business loans, and the return on fixed-term savings. A cut would make them cheaper gradually; a pause would leave them where they are.
Banxico will publish the minutes of this meeting on Nov. 19, and its last decision of the year is Dec. 17.
