ECB keeps interest rate unchanged today, with main refinancing rate, marginal lending facility rate, and deposit facility rate at 0.0)%, 0.25%, and -0.50% respectively. Net purchase under APP will continue at monthly pace of EUR 20B. The EUR 1850PEPP will continue “until at least the end of March 2022”. Purchase pace remain at “significantly higher pace” than during first months of the year.
Also, ECB now expects key interest rates to ” remain at their present or lower levels until it sees inflation reaching two per cent well ahead of the end of its projection horizon and durably for the rest of the projection horizon, and it judges that realised progress in underlying inflation is sufficiently advanced to be consistent with inflation stabilising at two per cent over the medium term.” It added that this may also imply “a transitory period in which inflation is moderately above target.”
