ECB officials met bankers in run-up to rate meetings

ECB board members have regularly met with banks and hedge funds privately just days before interest rate decisions, documents from the bank showed.

Executive board members, the inner core of the ECB’s 25-member Governing Council, met officials from a host of financial firms over the past year, including BNP Paribas, UBS, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and think-tanks such as Brussels-based Bruegel, documents first published by the Financial Times showed.

The ECB’s transparency has come under heightened scrutiny since board member Benoit Coeure told a closed-door meeting in May that the bank would front-load its asset purchases during the summer months, sending the euro sharply lower.

The ECB has since revamped transparency rules but, in a recent letter to the EU Ombudsman, president Mario Draghi said that such meetings were an “essential” part of its communication policy.

Mr Coeure, one of Mr Draghi’s close allies, met BNP Paribas on September 4 last year. In total, the French bank met ECB executive board members 12 times in the year to August.

Hedge fund Moore Capital secured one-to-one time with the ECB top executives seven times. Other hedge funds that got access to the most senior ECB officials include the world’s largest, Bridgewater Associates.