Last night, following an emergency meeting of its governing council, the European Central Bank announced a new temporary asset purchase program worth 750 billion Euro (around 6% of Eurozone GDP) until the end of the year – or longer if needed – in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The ECB also decided to expand the range of assets eligible for purchase to non-financial commercial paper and to ease its collateral standards to allow banks to raise money against more of their assets, including corporate finance claims.