At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the ECB took the following monetary policy decisions: (1) The envelope for the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) will be increased by €600 billion to a total of €1,350 billion. In response to the pandemic-related downward revision to inflation over the projection horizon, the PEPP expansion will further ease the general monetary policy stance, supporting funding conditions in the real economy, especially for businesses and households. The purchases will continue to be conducted in a flexible manner over time, across asset classes and among jurisdictions. This ... (full story)

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced Thursday that it will increase its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) by 600 billion euros ($672 billion), as it attempts to bolster the region’s economy following the coronavirus crisis. The amount comes on top of 750 billion euros of government bond purchases that the ECB announced in March, taking to total to 1.35 trillion euros. The central bank also said Thursday that the duration of its crisis bond-buying program would be expended from the end of 2020 until June 2021. The emergency program has helped keep borrowing costs lower for countries in the euro zone — ... (full story)