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 left its main interest rate unchanged on Thursday at a record low of 1% for the 15th consecutive month. The ECB president, Jean-Claude Trichet, is addressing a press conference and is expected to acknowledge the recent improvement in the outlook for the Eurozone and the recovery of the euro from 1999 year lows versus the US dollar. In London, the Bank of England kept its key rate at 0.5% - - the lowest since 1694.

Until the credit crunch three years ago this month, the ECB Governing Council used not meet in August.

Three years ago, the term 'credit crunch,' entered the financial lexicon. Defined as "a severe shortage of money or credit", on August 09, 2007 the French bank BNP Paribas triggered sharp rise in the cost of credit, and made the financial world realise how serious the situation was, when the ECB  swung into action by pumping €95bn into the Eurozone's inter-bank market and added a further €108.7 billion in succeeding days.

In London today, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the official rate at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases (quantitative easing/money printing) financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200bn.

The MPC's latest inflation and output projections will appear in the Inflation Report to be published at 10:30am on Wednesday 11 August.

The previous change in bank 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 £200 billion on 5 November 2009.

For Jean-Claude-Trichet's press conference: ECB webcast - -  choose the player configuration from the window which opens to have the best reception.

The Eurozone (EA16) consists of Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.