BENGALURU—The European Central Bank will raise its deposit rate in the second half of this year, and not wait until 2023 as previously expected, according to a Reuters poll of economists who also sharply upgraded their inflation forecasts for this year. The change in view followed a shift in the ECB Governing Council to concerns about consumer price inflation, rising rapidly across much of the world and which hit a record high of 5.1 percent in the 19-member eurozone in January on a year earlier. While a majority of ECB watchers polled between Feb. 7 and 14 expected the central bank to lift the deposit rate to -0.25 percent by end-year from a record low of -0.50 percent, financial markets are already pricing in a return to zero by that time. Even that would leave the ECB well behind the U.S. Federal Reserve, expected to raise its federal funds rate …
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