FRANKFURT: Lending to households and firms in the euro zone fell by 0.1 percent in January, a slower pace of decline than in the previous month, while money supply grew by 4.1 percent, the European Central Bank said on Thursday.

Sparce lending to companies continues to dog the struggling economy of the 19-country euro zone. Earlier this year, the ECB laid down a plan to spend hundreds of billions of euros on government bonds.

In monthly 60 billion-euro instalments from March, the ECB will buy chiefly government debt at least until September of next year, or as long as is needed to revive inflation, which has swung into reverse.

Copyright Reuters, 2015