At its regular monetary policy meeting on 10 March, the ECB Governing Council announced a bold package of monetary easing measures, including a cut in all key interest rates aiming to boost domestic economic activity and counteract heightened risks on its price stability objective. The interest rate on the main refinancing operations of the Eurosystem and the interest rate on the marginal lending facility were unexpectedly decreased by 5bp each to 0.00% and 0.25%, respectively, while the deposit facility rate was lowered by 10bp to -0.40% as anticipated, all effective from 16 March 2016. Furthermore, the monthly QE purchases were increased by a higher than expected €20bn to €80bn starting in April 2016 and scheduled to run until March 2017. Moreover, the ECB decided to launch a new series of four targeted longer-term refinancing operations (LTRO II) each with a maturity of 4 years, starting in June 2016.
ECB launches a bold package of easing measures
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