ECB willing to act on rates, purchases to boost inflation: Draghi

[FRANKFURT] The European Central bank is ready to act quickly to boost anaemic inflation in the euro zone, its president said on Friday, highlighting changes to its asset-purchase programme and deposit rates as possible tools.

"If we decide that the current trajectory of our policy is not sufficient to achieve our objective, we will do what we must to raise inflation as quickly as possible," Mario Draghi said, adding that a decision will be made at the ECB's Dec 3 meeting.

"We consider the asset purchase programme to be a powerful and flexible instrument, as it can be adjusted in terms of size, composition or duration to achieve a more expansionary stance," he told a conference. "The level of the deposit facility rate can also empower the transmission of APP, not least by increasing the velocity of circulation of bank reserves," Draghi added.

REUTERS