Is the ECB already doing QE?

The ECB confirmed last week that it will start to buy assets outright later this month and that the purchases will not be sterilised. But technically, this probably still amounts to credit easing rather than quantitative easing. And the big picture is that, by limiting itself to a small asset class, the Bank does not have enough scope to eradicate the risk of deflation. We expect it to announce purchases of specific and large quantities of a broader range of assets in the coming months.