MUNICH Germany (Reuters) - The likelihood that the European Central Bank will take fresh policy action in June to combat low price pressures in the euro zone has grown substantially, Executive Board member Yves Mersch said on Monday.
President Mario Draghi said after the ECB's May meeting that the Governing Council was "comfortable with acting next time" - its June 5 policy meeting - but wanted to see updated economic projections from the bank's staff first.
Since then, data has confirmed a slight increase in euro zone inflation in April to 0.7 percent from 0.5 percent the previous month, but also shown that the economy grew much less than expected at the start of the year.
"The likelihood that the Governing Council will already act at its next monetary policy meeting in June has grown substantially," Mersch said in the text of a speech for delivery in Munich.
He added that the Governing Council was unanimous in its willingness to deploy both conventional and unconventional measures to effectively counter the risks of very low inflation over a longer period of time.
While there were no signs of deflation taking hold in the euro zone, Mersch said "we should at least be prepared" for the residual risks of such a scenario. A too long period of very low inflation risked unanchoring long-term inflation expectations.
Last week, Reuters reported that the ECB is preparing a package of policy options for the June meeting, including cuts in all its interest rates and targeted measures aimed at boosting lending to small- and mid-sized firms.
Mersch also highlighted the importance of the securitised loans market for the financing of the small- and medium-sized companies that make up a big chunk of economic activity in the euro zone.
He said the existing undifferentiated regulatory treatment of asset backed securities (ABS) was not fair to the varying risk profiles of these instruments and that this needed to change soon, preferably at a global level.
Should it become clear that it would take too long to improve the regulatory requirements for ABS on a global scale, Mersch said it would be appropriate for Europe to go it alone.
A sharp reduction in capital charges on banks who transform loans into securitised debt would almost certainly breach global bank capital rules set by the Basel Committee of banking regulators from nearly 30 jurisdictions, including the EU.
Basel, however, has no power of sanction.
Insurers are major buyers of securitised debt and the ECB also wants the capital charges imposed on them to be cut, a much easier undertaking as this can be done at the EU level and there is no global rule to breach.
(Writing by Eva Taylor and Huw Jones; Editing by Paul Carrel)