Pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) - (ECB)

Pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP)

The ECB’s pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) is a non-standard monetary policy measure initiated in March 2020 to counter the serious risks to the monetary policy transmission mechanism and the outlook for the euro area posed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

The PEPP is a temporary asset purchase programme of private and public sector securities, which has an overall envelope of €750 billion. All asset categories eligible under the existing asset purchase programme (APP) are also eligible under the new programme. Under the PEPP, a waiver of the eligibility requirements will be granted for securities issued by the Greek Government. In addition, non-financial commercial paper is now eligible for purchases both under the PEPP and the corporate sector purchase programme (CSPP). The residual maturity of public sector securities eligible for purchase under the PEPP ranges from 70 days up to 30 years and 364 days.

For the purchases of public sector securities under the PEPP, the benchmark allocation across jurisdictions will be the capital key of the national central banks. At the same time, purchases will be conducted in a flexible manner. This allows for fluctuations in the distribution of purchase flows over time, across asset classes and among jurisdictions.

The Governing Council will terminate net asset purchases under the PEPP once it judges that the COVID-19 crisis phase is over, but in any case not before the end of 2020.

• Decision ECB/2020/17 of 24 March 2020
• Press release announcing the €750 billion pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP)
• The ECB Blog - Christine Lagarde: Our Response to the Coronavirus
• PEPP - Questions & Answers