The European Central Bank will not cut its deposit rate further into negative territory at its December monetary policy meeting, according to the vast majority of traders polled by Reuters yesterday.

With the euro weakening on expectations, the US Federal Reserve will hike rates in December, 18 of 21 respondents said the ECB would not cut the deposit rate to try to boost inflation, something its president Mario Draghi said it was prepared to do.

“I expect the euro dollar to continue to weaken on the back of a hawkish Federal Reserve,” said a trader at a big bank. “I do think that they (ECB) might do something on the quantitative easing side.”

Since March, the ECB has injected €60 billion a month of new money through a bond-buying scheme to support growth and inflation, and a Reuters poll late last month found it was almost certain to increase or extend the programme in December.

Yesterday’s poll also found the ECB is expected to lend banks €60 billion at its weekly refinancing operation, slightly less than the €61.468 billion maturing from last week.