A 25bps cut to the refi rate from the ECB:
2 May 2013 – Monetary policy decisions
At today’s meeting, which was held in Bratislava, the Governing Council of the ECB took the following monetary policy decisions:
The interest rate on the main refinancing operations of the Eurosystem will be decreased by 25 basis points to 0.50%, starting from the operation to be settled on 8 May 2013.
The interest rate on the marginal lending facility will be decreased by 50 basis points to 1.00%, with effect from 8 May 2013.
The interest rate on the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%.
As Lorcan noted, the 50 bps cut in the marginal lending facility is worth a bit of attention. Emergency Liquidity Assistance rates are priced off the MLF rate. So you get the MLF rate plus a “penalty” reflecting the emergency nature of the aid.
From Reuters:
The exact details of ELA are not published but the average interest rate charged on it is estimated to be around 100 to 150 basis points above the ECB’s overnight lending rate at the time.
A bit more on that here from an earlier post.
We’ll be watching the presser (at 1330 BST) for anything really interesting.