ECB president Mario Draghi will announce an asset-backed securities purchasing programme at Thursday’s monthly meeting instead of unveiling plans for fully fledged quantitative easing.

Irish banks will have to prove they can withstand another slump in property prices, a surge in unemployment, and sclerotic growth over a three-year period as part of the EU-wide stress tests later this year.

The European Commission has cited a number of “possible national solutions” to the tracker problem crippling the Irish banking system in its latest report on the Irish economy — ruling out official support from either the ESM or the ECB.

The low interest rate environment is forcing investors into more risky assets such as equities and property, but the lack of credit throughout the eurozone is putting a cap on opportunities.

The IBRC — comprising former Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide — will have €3bn less to repay creditors after the Government sped up its liquidation, two sources said on condition of anonymity.

The new governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, takes over responsibility for UK monetary policy with a weight of expectations unprecedented for any modern central banker.

The latest Central Bank figures show that domestic banks and households continue to deleverage, with mortgage and business lending falling and deposits increasing.

For the sixth month in a row, the NTMA will issue a €500m three-month treasury bill tomorrow.

The focus of tomorrow’s ECB meeting will be whether the bank unveils a “big bazooka” to boost SME lending across the region.

The markets have lost faith in the coalition government in the UK which means sterling will remain weak for the foreseeable future, said Lorcan Roche Kelly, chief european strategist with the US hedge fund, Trend Macro.

Italy’s cost of borrowing surged yesterday as investors dumped the country’s bonds in the wake of the general election.

The NTMA will most likely issue a 10-year bond in the very near future to take advantage of the positive market sentiment towards Ireland following the agreement reached with the ECB over the restructuring of the promissory notes, says Lorcan Roche Kelly, chief European strategist with the US hedge fund, Trend Macro.

The Government is in line for a watered down deal on the €30bn Anglo promissory note after ECB sources suggested any agreement will be limited and not yield any savings to the State.

Investors piled into equities sending markets to two-year highs yesterday as most of the major macro-economic risks that threatened to derail the recovery now appear to be receding.

European investor sentiment is slowly improving, according to the Sentix Research Institute based in Germany.

The news that the giant global investment manager Franklin Templeton is the biggest holder of Irish government debt outside of the IMF and EU has put the economy in a spotlight before a series of crucial ECB/EU meetings.

Documents leaked over the past few days show that the Greek government is looking for a two-year extension on the €11.5bn fiscal consolidation programme it agreed with the EU and IMF over 2013 and 2014.

RENTS fell by just over half a percent last year compared with a drop of 15% during 2009, a new report from property website Daft has shown.

THE husband of murdered mother-of-two Sylvia Roche Kelly has demanded to know why her killer was let free to prey on her when he was already awaiting trial for two other savage crimes.

A 24 year-old Tipperary man who beat a woman to death in a Limerick hotel room just over a year ago has been jailed for life by the Central Criminal Court.