The Danish central bank has bowed to pressure and cut interest rates to a record low as currency speculators search for their next target after forcing Switzerland to abandon its defence of the franc.
The decision by Denmark’s Nationalbanken to cut its deposit rate from minus 0.05 per cent to minus 0.20 per cent, equal to the record low of 2012, also comes ahead of the expected launch of the European Central Bank’s programme of quantitative easing this week — an initiative that would probably add to pressure on the krone.
Markets have been full of chatter about whether Denmark’s strict peg to the euro could be the next target of investors after last week’s move by the SNB to end its ceiling on the franc-euro exchange rate.