Brazil’s central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged, defying intense pressure from president Lula da Silva and his team for a looser monetary policy. The bank held the Selic at 13.75% for the fifth straight meeting late on Wednesday. In a statement, policymakers mostly kept the tone of their prior communications, including a warning of additional rate hikes if the pace of price increases doesn’t slow as expected. They also wrote that inflation expectations have shown “additional deterioration,”, especially in longer-term forecasts.