Investing.com – As markets expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) made no changes to its record-low interest rates and announced no new measures on Thursday.
The ECB left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record-low 0.0%, in line with forecasts.
The central bank also held its deposit facility rate steady at -0.4% and its marginal lending rate remained at 0.25%.
Additionally, the ECB also kept the size of its monthly quantitative easing program at approximately €80 billion.
The statement also added that “the focus is now on the implementation of the additional non-standard measures decided on 10 March 2016.”
Additionally, the ECB promised to provide further information on the implementation aspects of the corporate sector purchase program which would be released after the press conference.
ECB president Mario Draghi was to comment on the decision at a press conference at 13:30GMT, or 8:30AM ET.
EUR/USD was trading at 1.1321 from around 1.1319 ahead of the announcement, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7870 from 0.7877 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were mostly lower. The EURO STOXX 50 fell 0.20%, France's CAC 40 lost 0.43%, Germany's DAX traded down 0.24%, while London’s FTSE 100 shed 0.49%.