The European Central held interest rates for the third month running in August amid signs the euro area is getting out of recession.
The bank’s 23-member Governing Council on Thursday decided, as widely expected, to maintain the benchmark refinancing rate at 0.50%. The record-low rates were cut three months ago by 25 percentage points. The ECB Deposit facility was left unchanged at 0.00% correspondingly.
It seems the ECB is still poised to maintain an accommodative monetary policy for a longer period in response of emerging signs that the recession in the euro area is bottoming out.