No big change from the ECB

Last week’s ECB meeting concluded, as expected, with the central bank leaving its key interest rates unchanged at -0.4% for the deposit rate and 0% for the refinancing rate.

There was also no change to the plans for its asset purchase programme which will run until the end of December 2017, or beyond, if necessary. There had been a lot of speculation in the lead up to the meeting that the ECB may remove or row back on its easing bias in relation to its asset purchase programme.

However, the text stating that the ECB stands “ready to increase our asset purchase programme in terms of size and/or duration” was left unchanged.