An image of the planned new headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet layed the foundation stone on May 19, 2010. The €850m headquarters will consist of two towers—one 41 floors high and the other 44 floors—joined by a massive conference and visitor centre where a historic fruit-and-vegetable market once stood. It will be completed in 2014. Trichet's eight-year term expires in October 2011.

The European Central Bank (ECB) as expected kept its benchmark interest rate on hold at 1.0%, at a meeting of the governing council in Frankfurt, today. The ECB president, Jean-Claude Trichet, is addressing a press conference where he is expected to be questioned on the higher interest rates for inter bank borrowing costs after banks last week repaid a record €442bn in loans which were-granted for a 12-month period in June 2009. Trichet is also likely to be probed on the stress tests of Eurozone banks. In London, the Bank of England kept its key rate at 0.5% - - the lowest since 1694.

On Wednesday, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) which is composed of high level representatives from the banking supervisory authorities and central banks of the European Union said  that stress tests will be carried out on 91 banks which represent 65% of the EU banking sector. Bank of Ireland and AIB are included in the group. The CEBS said banking groups have been tested on a consolidated level. This means that subsidiaries and branches of an EU cross-border banking group have been included in the exercise as a part of the test of the group as a whole.

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain its key interest rate at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of bond asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200bn.

The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30am on Wednesday July 21st.

The previous change in interest rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% on 5 March 2009. A programme of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves was initiated on 5 March 2009. The most recent change in the size of that programme was an increase of £25bn to a total of £200b on 5 November 2009.

Information on the Asset Purchase Facility can be found here .

The Bank said will continue to offer to purchase high-quality private sector assets on behalf of the Treasury and financed by the issue of Treasury bills, in line with the arrangements announced in January 2009.