Bigger ECB rate hikes depend on September inflation f'casts - Lagarde

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday that if the bank's September inflation projections put the pace of price growth in 2024 at 2.1% or higher, the bank will raise interest rates by more than 25 basis points.

"We must stay the course and be determined to contain inflation," Lagarde told reporters in Amsterdam after the bank's monetary policy meeting.

Investors are expecting the ECB to join the Federal Reserve and some other major central banks in raising its interest rates by 50 basis points in one go at some point - a bigger increment than has been usual since the global financial crisis.

Money market pricing suggests the ECB will hike rates by 75 basis points over its next two meetings, implying at least one hike worth more than the quarter of a percentage point that chief economist Philip Lane described as a "benchmark".

The Austrian, Dutch, Latvian and Slovak central bank chiefs have all recently said that a 50 basis-point rate hike should be on the table this summer.

But the central bank governors of Italy and Spain, two of the euro zone's most indebted countries, have struck a more cautious tone, calling for gradual increases.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; Editing by Hugh Lawson)