Global investment bank JP Morgan has said that South Korea's central bank is expected to hike its key interest rate four more times by year's end based on its recent hawkish stance.

Park Seok-gil, an analyst at JP Morgan, said in a report on Wednesday that the Bank of Korea(BOK) will make back-to-back hikes of zero-point-25 percentage points over four meetings by October with the interest rate to reach two-point-five percent at the end of the year.

He also predicted that an additional zero-point-25 percentage-point increase will happen next January, pushing the interest rate to two-point-75 percent.

Based on the wording used in the recent BOK minutes from its April meeting, the report determined that the central bank is taking a more hawkish stance as they expressed concerns over the second-round effect of inflation caused by a loop between real inflation and inflation expectations.

The BOK is set to hold its next rate-setting meeting on May 26.