European Central Bank keeps rates unchanged

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - The European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday decided to keep interest rates stable, complying with the market expectations.

Interest rates on main refinancing operations, marginal lending and deposit facility are 0.00%, 0.25%, and -0.50%, respectively, according to the bank's statement.

Also, the bank said conditions on the targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO III) have been further eased.

"The ECB decided to reduce the interest rate on TLTRO III operations during the period from June 2020 to June 2021 to 50 basis points below the average interest rate on the Eurosystem’s main refinancing operations prevailing over the same period," it said.

Since the end of March, the ECB has started new pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP), which has an overall envelope of €750 billion, to ease the overall monetary policy stance and to counter the severe risks to the monetary policy transmission mechanism.

"These purchases will continue to be conducted in a flexible manner over time, across asset classes and among jurisdictions," it added.

The statement went on to say the ECB will conduct net asset purchases under the PEPP until it judges that the coronavirus crisis phase is over, but in any case until the end of this year.