THE euro jumped against the dollar Thursday after the European Central Bank (ECB) said it could revisit its communication stance in early 2018, boosting expectations that policymakers are preparing to reduce their vast monetary stimulus program.

With the euro zone seeing its best growth in a decade, the ECB should gradually shift its stance to avoid a more disruptive move later and look at a broader revision of its policy guidance to reduce the focus on bond purchases and raise the emphasis on interest rates, accounts of the ECB’s December meeting showed.

“It’s certainly more of a hawkish tilt in the minutes,” said Karl Schamotta, director of global product and market strategy at Cambridge Global Payments in Toronto.

“This has been long expected but there was more formality in the minutes around how the bank will manage the forward guidance process as they exit unconventional policy,” Schamotta said.

The euro jumped nearly 0.8 percent against the U.S. dollar on Thursday following the release of minutes from the last meeting of the ECB. Analysts interpreted the comments as more hawkish than what President Mario Draghi had sounded back in December, and indicated that the ECB could look to change its guidance to the markets.

Some investors are now making calls that the euro zone’s central bank could end its massive bond-buying program by the end of next year, with a potential rate increase in the fourth quarter.

“The policy considerations contain so much discussion on the need for a gradual adjustment of communication that the ECB will most likely do so by the March meeting, assuming continued progress on inflation,” Anatoli Annenkov, senior European economist at Societe Generale, said in a note on Thursday.

At present, the ECB’s policy is to carry on purchasing 30 billion euros (US$ 36.38 billion) worth of government bonds until September, with the caveat that it might expand it again, if needed.

(SD-Agencies)