Do you remember anything about credit ratings? We mean the funny looking numbers and letters that used to make credit cheaper or expensive. Well, we should all forget about that era of financial discipline. With the coronavirus death toll surging to record highs, countries around the globe spurred spending, boosting debt numbers to record levels. No one really cares about ratings anymore.

Eurozone governments must keep spending heavily to aid the recovery from pandemic-induced recession, complementing already super-easy monetary policy, ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Sunday. “Confidence in the private sector rests to a very large extent on confidence in fiscal policies,” she said in a speech.

The European Central Bank extended on Tuesday a recommendation to Eurozone’s banks not to pay dividends or buy back own shares until January to face the coronavirus crisis, news wires reported. The top supervisor asks banks to be extremely moderate with regard to variable remuneration.

Bulgaria and Croatia have been accepted into Exchange Rate Mechanism II, a precursor to adopting the euro as their currency over the next three years, the European Central Bank said in a statement on Friday, Reuters reported.

A Malta-based bank, Satabank, has had its licence withdrawn by the European Central Bank, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna and the Malta Financial Services Authority said on Wednesday cited by Reuters. The decision was taken on the recommendation of the authority.

The Eurozone has “probably past” the worst of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Friday, while urging authorities to prepare for a possible second wave.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned national leaders that the recent calm in financial markets is in part because investors have priced in action from governments.

The European Central Bank has boosted its pandemic emergency support programme by an unexpectedly large €600 billion to €1.35 trillion ($1.5 trillion) in an effort to keep affordable credit flowing to the economy during the steep downturn caused by the virus outbreak.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Wednesday warned that the eurozone economy will likely shrink by between 8% and 12% this year, a deeper downturn than previously anticipated, as governments battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that the European Central Bank must clarify a key bond-buying scheme to support the eurozone economy is “proportionate” or else Germany’s central bank may no longer participate, news wires reported.