Fed will not follow robotic rate-hike path, Fischer says

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will not follow a pre-determined series of interest rate hikes once it begins tightening policy later this year, the U.S. central bank's No. 2 policymaker said on Friday.

"I know of no plans to behave by following one of those deterministic paths for the next three years," Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer told central bankers and economists at a New York forum, distancing the Fed from the pattern of hikes it followed last decade.

"I hope that doesn't happen, I don't believe it will happen ... because our interest rate policy will continue to be data driven" and, he added, "shocks happen." Once the Fed lifts rates from near-zero, "we will not be pre-committed, because the liftoff was early or late, to being steep or not steep."

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)