‘Strong signal’: South Korea raises rates again to fight inflation, rising home prices

South Korea’s central bank has raised interest rates for a second straight month, with analysts saying its semiconductor boom has given policymakers room to confront inflation, a weak won and rising home prices, but at the cost of a deeper squeeze on indebted households and small businesses. The Bank of Korea (BOK) lifted its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage point to 3.0 per cent on Thursday, a month after an identical increase took it to 2.75 per cent in July. The latest move brought the rate.