The European Central Bank announced on Thursday that its Deposit Facility Rate would be left unchanged at -0.50%, as unanimously expected by analysts and market participants. The bank confirmed that the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) would end in March 2022, also as expected. 

To avoid a cliff-edge drop off in net bond purchases at the start of Q2, the ECB announced that the pace of monthly purchases under its pre-pandemic QE scheme called the Asset Purchase Programme (APP) would be upped to EUR 40B in Q2, and EUR 30B in Q3 from current levels of EUR 20B.