FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank is ready to act already next month if the economy is performing worse than expected, Governing Council member Luc Coene was quoted as saying on Friday.
Markets have extended bets on a euro zone interest rate cut, with analysts saying the latest bout of easing by the Federal Reserve and signs the Bank of England will follow suit left the European Central Bank looking behind the curve.
"If the data in early October shows that things are worse than we anticipated we will look at the kind of decisions we have to take for that," Coene, who also heads the Belgian central bank, told news agency Bloomberg in an interview, when asked if an interest-rate cut was warranted.
The ECB is the only major central bank which has raised interest rates after the financial crisis intensified, lifting them in April and again in July of this year.
The 17-country bloc's central bank's main interest rate is currently at 1.5 percent.
Coene also said the ECB "could perfectly do" longer-term refinancing operations if there were an urgent need for that.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.