ECB Keeps Key Policy Rate at Record Low 0.75%

The European Central Bank has kept a key interest rate at a record low 0.75 percent, in a bid to stimulate bank lending and spur economic growth, the regulator said on Thursday.

“At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the 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 0.75%, 1.50% and 0.00% respectively,” the regulator said in a statement.

The ECB President will comment on the considerations underlying these decisions later on Thursday, the bank said.

The last time the ECB cut the refinancing rate was in July 2012, when the regulator lowered the rate by a quarter percentage point to a historic low of 0.75 percent.

The euro continued its growth versus the dollar after the ECB announcement, trading at $1.2301 as of 15.53 Moscow time (11:53 GMT), from $1.2227 on Wednesday’s close.

In early 2012, the European Central Bank injected a total of 1 trillion euro liquidity in the eurozone banking sector to boost demand for riskier assets, especially equities and peripheral European bonds, and help the governments of heavily-indebted eurozone countries to service their sovereign debts.

 

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