- European Central Bank
The European Central Bank held one more round of Targeted Long-term Refinancing Operations programme, which is aimed to improve bank lending to Euro zone's non-financial private sector and stimulate economic recovery. This monetary policy tool, launched in June 2014, was decided to stay in place, even though the ECB began purchasing government bonds in March under the new QE programme. The ECB's goal also includes expanding its balance sheet by one trillion euros by the end of 2015. However, by holding the third scheduled round of TLTROs on Thursday, the pan-European regulator allocated just 97.8 billion euros to banks in the single currency area, down from 129.8 billion euros during the previous offer in December, but much more than 40 billion euros expected.
Most likely, markets are now turning their attention to the QE programme in the Euro zone, which is intended to revive the bloc's weakened economy and raise inflation expectations. The ECB began purchasing buying government securities on the secondary market on March 9, starting with German and Italian sovereign bonds. In total, purchases will amount to 60 billion euros per month until September 2016. Therefore, 16 straight months of implementing this monetary policy tool will result in expansion of the ECB's balance sheet by 1.1 trillion euros.
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