The European Central Bank will focus on more emergency bond purchases and cheap loans for banks when it puts together its new stimulus package next month to help the pandemic-hit euro zone economy, ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday.
Lagarde said inflation in the 19-country bloc was now likely to remain negative for longer than expected as a second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak forces new restrictions on economic activity.
The ECB’s job was to keep borrowing costs sufficiently low for households, firms and governments and support the banking sector to prevent a credit crunch, she said, pointing to the bank’s