FRANKFURT, April 26 Reuters Euro zone lending continued to stagnate in March and consumers trimmed their inflation expectations as recordhigh borrowing costs kept putting the brakes on the euro zone39;s economy, European Central Bank ECB reports showed on Friday.

The data was likely to cement the ECB39;s plan to start cutting interest rates in June after seeing inflation fall to just above its 2 goal and economic growth come to a standstill.

Today39;s data is in line with a start to cautious rate cuts, Bert Colijn, senior economist for the euro zone at ING, said.

Bank credit figures illustrated how high rates were likely discouraging borrowers as well as lenders part of the price to pay for the ECB39;s fight against high inflation.

Bank loans to companies increased by just 0.4 in March, compared with 0.3 a month earlier. Growth in lending to households, which had been more resilient until last summer, set a new decadelow at 0.2, from 0.3 in February.

In a sign that the ECB39;s bitter medicine was working, an ECB survey showed consumers in March cut their inflation expectations for the following 12 months to their lowest since December 2021 at 3.0.

Inflation expectations for three years ahead held steady for a fourth consecutive month at 2.5, the ECB said in its monthly poll of around 19,000 consumers.

From now on, we must weigh the risk of monetary policy becoming too tight, ECB policymaker Fabio Panetta said late on Thursday. A tight monetary stance…