ANKARA
The European Central Bank has left its key interest rates unchanged in a decision widely expected by economists.
The bank said in a statement on Wednesday: "The Governing Council of the ECB decided to keep ECB’s main lending rate unchanged at 0.05 percent and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility at 0.30 percent.”
The rate on its overnight deposit was kept at negative 0.20 percent, which means banks pay to store excess funds at the central bank.
The bank decision to hold key rate comes after the second month of the central bank’s recent massive bond-buying program.
The central bank launched a €1 trillion ($1.06 trillion) bond-purchasing scheme until the end of September 2016, known as quantitative easing, early last month to boost the Eurozone economy.
The bank pumped €60 billion in March into the block's 19-country currency economy.
Separately, lending in the Eurozone saw a significant improvement in the first quarter thanks to a recently launched asset-buying program, according to an ECB's Euro Area bank-lending survey on Tuesday.
The ECB said: "Euro-area banks indicated that they have used additional liquidity from their sales of marketable assets related to the asset-purchase program over the past six months, in particular for granting loans.
"The asset- purchase program seems to be effective in supporting lending to the euro-area economy."
Additional liquidity provided by the bond-buying program is largely used for loans to companies, mortgages, consumer credit and other lending to households, according to the survey.
