Money supply up for 8th month in January amid restrictive policy: BOK

South Korea's money supply rose for the eighth consecutive month in January amid tightening policy, central bank data showed Friday. The country's M2, a key gauge of the money supply, stood at 3,920.9 trillion won (US$2.95 trillion) in January, up 0.2 percent from a month earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The M2 is a measure of the money supply that counts cash, demand deposits and other easily convertible financial instruments. The central bank has been implementing its restrictive mode, as it delivered seven consecutive hikes in borrowing costs from April 2022 to January 2023 to tame soaring inflation in Asia's fourth-largest economy. Last month, the BOK held its key interest rate steady at 3.5 percent for the ninth straight time amid still high inflation and household debts. Source: Yonhap News Agency