*** The European Central Bank announces.........>

ECB: *** The European Central Bank announces EUR750bn Pandemic Emergency

Purchase Programme (PEPP). To Governing Council has decided the following:

- To launch a new temporary asset purchase programme of private and public

sector securities to counter the serious risks to the monetary policy

transmission mechanism and the outlook for the euro area posed by the outbreak

and escalating diffusion of the coronavirus, COVID-19.

- To expand the range of eligible assets under the corporate sector purchase

programme (CSPP) to non-financial commercial paper, making all commercial papers

of sufficient credit quality eligible for purchase under CSPP.

- To ease the collateral standards by adjusting the main risk parameters of the

collateral framework. In particular, we will expand the scope of Additional

Credit Claims (ACC) to include claims related to the financing of the corporate

sector. This will ensure that counterparties can continue to make full use of

the Eurosystem's refinancing operations.

- See http://tiny.cc/PEPP for the full statement.