The ECB president spoke Thursday as the central bank put into action the new monetary policy strategy. The measures reinforce the ECB’s efforts to convince markets that it will keep ultra-loose policy, including record-low negative interest rates. The ECB’s promise of continued ultra-loose policy sets it apart from some of the world’s biggest central banks.

Demand for exchange traded funds investing in senior loans has rocketed this year as investors hunt for respite from rising inflation. A net $7.3bn has been pumped into the sector so far this year. The trend is linked to rising inflation and interest rate expectations in the US and elsewhere, leading investors to favour floating-rate loans over fixed-rate bonds.

The 11 largest banks in the EU have €532 billion of investments and loans financing everything from extraction to transportation of fossil fuels, equivalent to 95% of their total common equity tier 1 capital. A sudden drop in value of these “fossil-fuel assets” would deplete the banks’ capacity to absorb losses and might even leave them vulnerable to bankruptcy.

The central bank said bond purchases under the €1.85tn pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) would continue in the three months to September. Although the economy was “gradually reopening” and inflation was expected to continue rising this year, the central bank expected price growth to fade again next year.

The rich across the globe have big ambitions for sustainable investing. More than half still believe they have to sacrifice returns to invest in a sustainable way. The results from the study come after a survey last year showed the new generation of wealthy people prioritizes financial returns over do-good strategies just as much as their parents did.

Regional assets invested in funds with an ESG tilt hit a record €1.1tn. Investors flocked to ESG funds last year. Once a fund is marked with a sustainable investment label, it makes it more accessible to some pension funds and other big investors that are looking for that label. However, there is no global consensus on what constitutes an ESG fund.

European Central Bank executive board member Fabio Panetta said a digital euro might be the innovation that sees negative interest rates passed directly to consumers. Panetta said officials keen to prevent bank runs could make the hoarding of digital central bank money unattractive by “penalizing remuneration” of holdings in excess of 3,000 euros.

Cryptocurrencies play almost no role in the staid world of corporate treasury, where protecting a company’s financial liquidity and cash reserves are key. Their massive volatility has ruled them out. Corporations invest their cash in very high quality, short-term fixed income securities, and are willing to accept a relatively low rate of return.

In Europe, investors looking to escape a sea of negative yields are snapping up some of the longest-maturity debt on offer in an attempt to park their money in assets that still provide some sort of return. On both sides of the Atlantic, the lengthiest debt is the focus of a debate over whether trillions of dollars of stimulus will trigger a resurgence in inflation.

About $1 trillion of bonds have seen their yields turn negative this week, meaning 27% of the world’s investment-grade debt is now sub-zero. Bond bulls got a boost on Thursday when the European Central Bank boosted its asset purchase program by an additional 500 billion euros in a bid to support the region’s economic recovery.

Collapsing trading volumes are a worrying sign for the market’s future. European Central Bank has taken its purchases of debt to unprecedented levels. By the end of 2021, investors will be even more squeezed out. The ECB is set to own around 43% of Germany’s notes. Trading volumes in bund futures have collapsed 62%.

Funds that buy US Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities recorded $1.8bn of inflows in the week ending Wednesday, the largest amount since June and the ninth consecutive week the funds have been allotted new money from clients. The inflows have been dominated by large institutions like endowments and pension funds.