The interest rate in central banks is rising on Twitter.
The number of people following the top 10 monetary authorities on the social-media website jumped 51 percent to just over 2 million in the year to mid-October, according to a survey by Central Banking Publications.
Such numbers are dwarfed by the 80.7 million who follow singer Katy Perry and the 68.3 million who track President Barack Obama.
The Federal Reserve proved the most popular, with the number of followers to the account of its Board of Governors climbing 62 percent to 304,000. Mexico’s central bank was second with 301,000, followed by the European Central Bank and Bank Indonesia.
The number of central banks with a Twitter account rose by seven to 72 last year, the report said. The most frequent tweeter was the Fed Bank of St. Louis with 15,100, just ahead of its Philadelphia counterpart’s 14,086.
Elsewhere on social media, 53 central banks had a YouTube channel, while 46 used Facebook, Central Banking Publications said.
For their part, Fed and Bank of England officials have both studied whether non-traditional data such as communications on Twitter can improve the accuracy and timeliness of their economic forecasts.
