European Central Bank President Mario Draghi: the central bank will launch an expanded asset purchase programme of 60 billion euro a month

The European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi said at the press conference on Thursday that the central bank will launch an expanded asset purchase programme of 60 billion euro a month starting from March 2015 until September 2016. In aggregate, the asset purchasing programme will be over 1.1 trillion euro.

Analysts had expected the ECB president to announce an asset purchase programme of 50 billion euro a month.

Draghi pointed out that "some additional eligibility criteria will be applied in the case of countries under an EU/IMF adjustment program".

Main comments by the ECB president:

• purchases of securities of European institutions will be subject to loss sharing;
  
• 20% of additional purchases will be subject to risk sharing;
  
• the pricing of the six remaining targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) will be changed;
  
• falling oil prices weighed on inflation, the possible negative impact "on wage and price-setting has increased and could adversely affect medium-term price developments";
  
• today's decision is expected to "strengthen demand, increase capacity utilisation and support money and credit growth, and thereby contribute to a return of inflation rates towards 2%";
  
• "the determined implementation of product and labour market reforms as well as actions to improve the business environment for firms needs to gain momentum in several countries";
  
• "fiscal policies should support the economic recovery".