The European Central Bank has bowed to pressure from campaign groups and parliamentarians to reveal more about the corporate bonds it has bought as part of its €2tn quantitative easing programme.
The ECB plans to publish information on the credit ratings of its holdings of €115bn-worth of corporate debt bought under QE, as well as a breakdown of the economic sectors represented by the holdings.
The publication of the information — which the ECB will update every six months — comes after members of the European Parliament and the QE for People campaign criticised the bank for being too opaque over its holdings of corporate bonds.
The ECB has in the past said that revealing too much about its holdings of corporate bonds will lead to markets trying to game the system. At present, it publishes the names of the bonds bought, but says nothing about the quantities in which it holds each bond.
The following information will appear on the ECB’s website at 4pm local time in Frankfurt today:
- A table comparing the credit rating distribution of Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP) holdings and of the eligible bond universe;
- A table comparing the country of risk distribution of CSPP holdings and of the eligible bond universe;
- A table comparing the economic sector distribution of CSPP holdings and of the eligible bond universe.