FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is set to use its bond-buying programme to guide investor expectations about an interest rate hike as the latter won’t come until the former ends, ECB board member Isabel Schnabel said on Monday.
“As the inflation outlook brightens, it becomes less important how much a central bank buys or when a reduction in the pace of net asset purchases starts, but rather when such purchases end,” Schnabel told a Latvian conference.
“It is the end date which signals that the conditions for an increase in policy rates are getting closer. The precise sequencing and timing will, of course, require careful guidance when the time has come.”
(Reporting By Francesco Canepa)
