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ECB Holds Interest Rates As Mario Draghi Steps Down

C

Christopher Gutfreund

Founder · 24 October 2019

Currencies Covered:

EUR

The European Central Bank has voted to hold interest rates at 0% following its October monetary policy meeting.

Thursday 24th October  - 12:52 (BST)

The European Central Bank has voted to hold interest rates at 0% following its October monetary policy meeting. It also held its deposit rates at -0.5% following last months 0.1% move lower. The euro has remained flat on the back of the news.

Analysts will now focus on the monetary policy statement a little later today to see if last months dovish view amongst policymakers remains. The ECB lowered its GDP forecasts to 1.1 percent in 2019 (vs 1.2 percent previously estimated) and 1.2 percent in 2020 (vs 1.4 percent).

This will also mark the end of Mario Draghi’s 8-year reign as President of the European Central Bank. Many credit the Italian economist as a key facilitator for the moving the ECB from being a central bank modelled after the German Bundesbnak to a modern, Anglo-Saxon type organisation. He also becomes the first president to leave the ECB without ever having raised interest rates.

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