ECB keeps rates on hold, as expected

• The European Central Bank kept monetary policy unchanged with rates steady and no adjustment to its December plan to wind down asset purchases.
• The deposit rate stays at -0.5%.
• The Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program is slowing down purchases, as laid out in December, and is expected to be wrapped up in March.
• There were few changes in the statement from December and notably the ECB stuck with calling inflation "transitory."
• The "Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels until it sees inflation reaching 2% well ahead of the end of its projection horizon and durably for the rest of the projection horizon, and it judges that realised progress in underlying inflation is sufficiently advanced to be consistent with inflation stabilising at 2% over the medium term. This may also imply a transitory period in which inflation is moderately above target."
• That constrasts with the hawkish tilt by the Bank of England, which sees 7% inflation in the spring.