- Mario Draghi, ECB President
The European Central Bank decided to embark on more stimulus measures to fight stubbornly low inflation. The central bank lowered the interest rate of the deposit facility by 10 basis points to –0.30%. In addition to that, the ECB extended its asset-purchase programme until the end of March 2017, or beyond, if necessity arises. However, the bank did not decide to boost the monthly purchases, disappointing markets who had anticipated for at least a 15 billion euros a month boost to 75 billion euros in assets a month. The central bank hopes that additional measures would reinforce momentum of the Euro zone's economic recovery and strengthen its resilience against global economic headwinds.
The ECB revised its growth outlook upwards, predicting the currency bloc's economy would expand at a 1.5% rate in 2015, compared with the 1.4% projection in September, while the central bank kept the 2017 growth forecast intact. With regards to consumer prices, the ECB continued to expect inflation to remain at 0.1% this year. In 2016, however, the ECB lowered its inflation predictions from 1.1% to 1.0%. The Euro gained versus the US Dollar, surging 2% to trade as high as $1.0864 after the announcements, having traded around 0.1% down versus the counterpart at $1.0604 prior to the decision.
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