Do Latin America Bankers Know Patience Is a Virtue?
For the region’s central banks, there is little to be lost in waiting for hard data showing the recent rise in inflation rates is temporary before easing further.
Inflation is heating up.
Photographer: Toya Sarno Jordan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Even with a cold spell advancing from the south, Latin America is feeling unusually sticky these days in one aspect.
Of the region’s top five central banks with inflation-targeting policies, only Peru’s has managed to slow price increases consistently to target five years after the start of the global pandemic. That’s in contrast to Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Chile, where price pressures in the service sectors, robust economic growth, strengthening labor markets and looser fiscal impulses have combined to put an end to a deflationary trend that began in late 2022. Worse, Brazil and Mexico — the two largest economies — have suffered an uptick in inflation rates in 2025, putting policymakers in a bit of a pickle.