Yes, new coins are created when staking (some 2.5% per year). These new coins created as a reward for staking are actually a built-in inflation.
you can call it inflation, interest whatever you want.. its still a small incentive for people to collect and hold i.e. hoard coins. thankfully not as big as other PoS coins. and obviously not big enough because mintpal still had more than 30% of the entire supply.