The European Central Bank has cut a key interest rate and promised more measures to try to get growth and inflation moving again in Europe.
The central bank said it was reducing the rate of interest it pays on bank deposits to minus 0.30% from minus 0.20%. Other rates were left unchanged.
“Further monetary policy measures will be communicated by the president of the ECB at a press conference starting at [8:30 a.m. ET] today,” it said in a statement.
The move had been widely telegraphed. The only remaining question is just how big the extra stimulus measures will be.
Most investors were expecting the ECB to cut its deposit rate deeper into negative territory, and to print at least another 500 billion euros ($530 billion). The ECB will use the new money to buy government bonds and other securities.
The aim: encourage banks to lend more cash to households and companies, while making it cheaper for businesses to borrow.
The central bank’s current stimulus program — known as quantitative easing — was launched in March. Back then, ECB President Mario Draghi said the effort would run at least until September 2016, giving it an initial value of 1.1 trillion euros.
The rate cut leaves the two most powerful central banks in the world moving in opposite directions.
Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen signaled on Wednesday that the first U.S. interest rate rise in almost a decade was likely when it meets December 15 and 16.
Markets were thrown into confusion just before the ECB announcement when the Financial Times published a story online saying the bank had decided to keep interest rates unchanged. The FT later tweeted a correction.
The euro was trading lower during the European morning, but jumped by 0.4% against the dollar after the incorrect story was published.
