The European Central Bank (ECB) purchased €50.3 billion of public and private debt under its quantitative-easing program in December, compared to €62.6 billion in November.

The ECB bought €44.3 billion of government and agency bonds in December, €5.8 billion of covered bonds, and €0.1 billion of asset-backed securities.

The ECB kept its interest rate unchanged at 0.05% on December 04, but lowered its deposit rate to -0.3% from -0.2%. The asset-buying programme will be extended until the end of March 2017. The volume of the monthly purchases remained unchanged.