European Central Bank (ECB) announces $1.27 trillion stimulus package Thursday Jan 22,2015

 

The European Central Bank (ECB) has announced a programme to buy $69bn of public and private bonds per month until September 2016 in a bid to kick-start the continent's faltering economy.

The purchases will begin in March 2015 and eventually total $1.27 trillion, said ECB president Mario Draghi on Thursday Jan 22,2015

Critics had expressed concern that European taxpayers would have to foot the bill of such a programme, known as quantitative easing (QE), if any one country defaulted on its debt

QE is regarded as the central bank's most powerful tool yet to ward off deflation in the single currency area, where consumer prices actually started to fall