FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is closer to lowering interest rates than at any time since it last cut them in July 2012 and is likely to shave a quarter-point off at its policy meeting next week.

Senior sources involved in the deliberations say momentum is building for action to help a euro zone economy which has slipped back into recession, a move that some policymakers wanted to take earlier this year.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is closer to lowering interest rates than at any time since it last cut them in July 2012 and is likely to shave a quarter-point off at its policy meeting next week.

Senior sources involved in the deliberations say momentum is building for action to help a euro zone economy which has slipped back into recession, a move that some policymakers wanted to take earlier this year.

TOKYO/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – It is your first day as the new U.S. Federal Reserve chief: the main interest rate is 4.50 percent, the economy is overheating and the task is to keep inflation and unemployment low.

Once in a while there is a curve ball — an oil crisis or a dollar spike — and if you move rates up or down appropriately you will be reappointed.

TOKYO/FRANKFURT, April 18 (Reuters) – It is your first day
as the new U.S. Federal Reserve chief: the main interest rate is
4.50 percent, the economy is overheating and the task is to keep
inflation and unemployment low.

Once in a while there is a curve ball — an oil crisis or a
dollar spike — and if you move rates up or down appropriately
you will be reappointed.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Modeled on the hawkish, inflation-fighting Bundesbank, the European Central Bank is used to focusing on containing price rises rather than worrying about them increasing too slowly – or even falling.

But now ECB policymakers are keenly aware that inflation in their 17-country euro zone risks slipping further below their target of just under 2 percent, even if they insist deflation is not a threat.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank this week will try to calm investors worried about the euro zone crisis flaring up again, pledging to keep the banking system lubricated after Cyprus’s brush with financial meltdown.

The central bank is widely expected to hold off an interest rate cut this month, instead waiting to see if a grim economic picture in the euro zone brightens before using its limited remaining margin for maneuver to lower borrowing costs further.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Lending to euro zone businesses rose on the month in February for the first time since July, showing patchy and fragile gains that offer a glimmer of hope for the euro zone’s crisis-hit economy.

Banks granted non-financial firms 2 billion euros (1.69 billion pounds) more of loans in February than in the previous month, European Central Bank data adjusted for sales and securitisations showed on Thursday.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Cyprus’s plan to impose capital controls threatens to test the ties that bind Europe’s monetary union and could see euros on the Mediterranean island valued differently to those in the rest of the bloc.

The capital controls, being imposed to avert a run on banks after an EU bailout, will limit foreign transactions and capital outflows but not movements of money within the country itself, the head of the Cyprus chamber of commerce said on Wednesday after meeting government officials.

FRANKFURT, March 27 (Reuters) – Cyprus’s plan to impose
capital controls threatens to test the ties that bind Europe’s
monetary union and could see euros on the Mediterranean island
valued differently to those in the rest of the bloc.

The capital controls, being imposed to avert a run on banks
after an EU bailout, will limit foreign transactions and capital
outflows but not movements of money within the country itself,
the head of the Cyprus chamber of commerce said on Wednesday
after meeting government officials.

NICOSIA/FRANKFURT, March 21 (Reuters) – The European Union
gave Cyprus till Monday to raise the billions of euros it needs
to secure an international bailout or face a collapse of its
financial system that could push it out of the euro currency
zone.

In stark twin warnings on Thursday, the European Central
Bank said it would cut off liquidity to Cypriot banks and a
senior EU official made clear to Reuters that the bloc was ready
to see the bankrupt island banished from the euro in the belief
it could then contain damage to the wider European economy.