European Central Bank President Mario Draghi cut interest rates and offered banks unlimited cash for three years while steering clear of any signal the ECB will buy more bonds to stem the region's debt crisis.

The Frankfurt-based ECB today reduced its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point to 1 percent, matching a record low. It pledged for the first time to offer banks unlimited cash for three years and loosened the collateral rules it imposes when lending to financial institutions.

The measures "should ensure enhanced access of the banking sector to liquidity," Draghi told reporters in Frankfurt today after chairing a meeting of the ECB's Governing Council.

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