Reuters: ECB will respect risk management with OMT bond buys - Mersch

23 October 2012

ECB Governing Council member Yves Mersch said there are no limits set in advance to the European Central Bank's new bond-buying programme but the ECB will stick to risk management principles when implementing the plan.

Mersch, who is expected to secure a vacant position on the bank's Executive Board, also said the new programme - dubbed Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) - was limited in time. The ECB has taken some of the heat out of the eurozone debt crisis by last month unveiling the OMT, though it has urged governments not to ease up on reforms.

Mersch also said the only similarity between the new programme and the previous one, called Securities Markets Programme, or SMP, was that both were limited in time - otherwise their design and goals are different. Mersch said he would prefer to have the International Monetary Fund involved in bailouts.

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