Philip Aldrick, Economics EditorEuropean banks are to be flooded with another round of state-subsidised funds after the European Central Bank scrapped plans to tighten monetary policy this year in the face of collapsing eurozone growth. Interest rates will be left unchanged until at least 2020 after the ECB abandoned plans to increase them after the summer. Under the surprise stimulus package it will launch a cheap funding scheme for the banks that is likely to deliver them hundreds of billions of euros in subsidised loans. The decision to reverse plans just months after the ECB ended its €2.6 trillion quantitative easing programme underscored the economic fragility of the eurozone, which enjoyed a resurgence for 20 months from 2016. “We are [in] a period of…

Source: The Times March 07, 2019 17:03 UTC