ECB holds interest rates steady

BRUSSELS: The European Central Bank Thursday held its key interest rates steady, as expected, as investors waited for ECB chief Mario Draghi to reveal more details of the bank´s much-anticipated bond purchase programme.
At the ECB´s regular policy meeting, held in Nicosia, Cyprus this time instead of the usual venue of Frankfurt, the governing council voted to hold the benchmark “refi” refinancing rate at its current record low of 0.05 percent.
The two other key rates — on the deposit and marginal lending facilities — were also unchanged at -0.2 percent and +0.3 percent, respectively.
Draghi was expected to explain the reasoning behind the decision at his usual post-meeting news conference.
But ECB watchers said the main focus for the financial markets would be any details on the bank´s new programme of quantitative easing or QE, which Draghi had announced in January.
Under the programme, the ECB plans to buy 60 billion euros ($68 billion) of private and public bonds each month for at least 18 months in a bid to ward off deflation in the euro area.