ECB will likely keep interest rate the same

Borrowers should not expect to see a cut in the ECB main interest rate today but the bank is likely to move to reassure people it will stay low in the near future.
Economic growth across the eurozone remains very weak, despite the European Central Bank previously lowering the rate to a historic low of 0.5 percent.
The meeting today comes against a backdrop of a political crisis in Portugal that pushed its benchmark bond yields above 8 percent.
Conal McCoille is Chief Economist at Davy. He says we are also unlikely to see progress on a plan to improve lending to SMEs at the ECB meeting.
“There had been a lot of enthusiasm about this around sort of April/May time – but unfortunately it’s quite difficult to set up new markets to sell bank loans across Europe spreads” he said.
“The cost of funding in places like Greece, Portugal, Ireland is higher than say Germany and Austria – and it’s just very difficult to do things about that”.
“We may hear more today, but unfortunately it’s probably a bit too early to expect any concrete action on that; so (it’s) on the back-burner for now I’m afraid” he added.