SMP bond programme unchanged in week

FRANKFURT: The overall size of the European Central Bank's first government bond purchase programme remained unchanged at 209 billion euros with no previously bought bonds maturing last week, the ECB said on Monday.

The ECB terminated its Securities Markets Programme (SMP) earlier this month to replace it with a new plan it hopes will be more effective in lowering struggling euro zone countries' borrowing costs.

As usual, the ECB will take an amount equivalent to the overall size of the SMP as weekly deposits from banks on Tuesday to counterbalance the buys and neutralise any threat of them fuelling inflation.