The ECB announces its monetary policy decision for 24 October 2019
- Prior decision
- Deposit facility rate -0.50%
- Main refinancing rate 0.00%
- Marginal lending facility 0.25%
- Sees rates at present or lower levels until near inflation goal
- To continue with bond purchases for as long as needed
- To stop bond purchases shortly before raising rates
- To reinvest QE debt for extended period of time after first rate hike
- Confirms to begin bond purchases of €20 billion per month starting from 1 November
Pretty much a non-event as the statement reads out the obvious and there was no change to the deposit rate facility. EUR/USD holds steady at 1.1126 and is rightfully unchanged from the decision as there is nothing to add to the September stimulus package.
Now, it's over to Draghi's farewell press conference at 1230 GMT. The full statement, for those interested:
At today's meeting the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) decided that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50% respectively. The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within its projection horizon, and such convergence has been consistently reflected in underlying inflation dynamics.As decided at the last Governing Council meeting in September, net purchases will be restarted under the Governing Council's asset purchase programme (APP) at a monthly pace of €20 billion as from 1 November. The Governing Council expects them to run for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of its policy rates, and to end shortly before it starts raising the key ECB interest rates.The Governing Council intends to continue reinvesting, in full, the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the APP for an extended period of time past the date when it starts raising the key ECB interest rates, and in any case for as long as necessary to maintain favourable liquidity conditions and an ample degree of monetary accommodation.The President of the ECB will comment on the considerations underlying these decisions at a press conference starting at 14:30 CET today.
