ECB will not ease policy further until 2017: traders

[FRANKFURT] The European Central Bank will wait until next year before easing monetary policy further, resisting pressure on it to do more, according to a majority of euro money market traders polled by Reuters on Monday.

Although the central bank has been buying bonds for well over a year and has cut its deposit rate to negative and refinancing rate to zero, inflation is not expected to reach the ECB's target until 2018 at the earliest.

While there is pressure on the ECB to act, 13 of 17 traders said any further easing will come in 2017. The remaining four said the central bank would act again this year.

A Reuters poll of economists last month suggested the ECB would announce an extension to its bond buying programme in December.

The wider survey of 19 traders showed banks will take 38.0 billion euros (S$58.11 billion) at the ECB's weekly refinancing operation, similar to the amount maturing from last week.

REUTERS