WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 (Reuters) - The US Federal Reserve may consider slowing the pace of interest rate hikes at its next meeting but could not be seen as a "softening" in its commitment to lowering inflation, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Sunday.

Markets must now pay attention to the "end point" of rising interest rates, not the speed of each move, and that end point is likely "a long way off," Waller said in response to a barrage of questions about monetary policy at an organized economics conference. by UBS in Australia. "It depends on inflation."

"We're at a point where we can start to think maybe going to a slower pace," said Waller, but "we're not easing down... Stop paying attention to speed and start paying attention to where the end point is going to be. Until we drop inflation, that endpoint is still out there."

A report released last week showing slower-than-expected inflation in October was "good news," but "just one data point" must be followed by other similar readings to show conclusively that inflation is slowing, he said.

The 7.7% annualized increase in inflation recorded in October is still "a huge one," Waller said, noting that even if the Fed reduced the three-quarter-point hike to half a point at its next meeting, "you're still going up." "We need to see a continuation of this kind of behavior and inflation slowly starting to come down before we really start to think about taking our foot off the brakes," Waller said, adding that he was growing more confident in the Fed. is on the right track as its rate increase has so far not "ruined anything".

The Fed has raised interest rates by 3.75 proportion points this year starting in March, including four three-quarter point hikes, a swift shift in monetary policy aimed at cooling a wave of inflation that has weakened since the 1980s. "For all the talk about destroying the economy and destroying financial markets. It just doesn't work," Waller said. Analysts and economists have argued that monetary tightening will increase the risk of a recession, impacting employment. US Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown last month urged the Federal Reserve to exercise caution in implementing monetary policy so that millions of Americans already suffering from high inflation will also lose their jobs.