- Emergency bond-buying for longer -ECB chief Christine Lagarde announced that the bank would expand its main virus-fighting tool, the pandemic emergency bond-purchase programme known as PEPP, by 500 billion euros ($605 billion) to 1.85 trillion euros.It also extended the scheme by nine months, to March 2022, with Lagarde adding that PEPP will keep running until the ECB judges that "the coronavirus crisis phase is over".The scheme pumps unprecedented amounts of cheap money into the euro area, allowing borrowing costs to remain low to encourage spending and investment.The goal is to support economic growth and push stubbornly low inflation higher to the ECB's target of just under 2.0 percent.The ECB also said it would extend the reinvestment.