ECB bought 1.5 billion euros of commercial paper on first day of buys

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank bought 1.5 billion euros worth of commercial paper on the first day of its purchases and its entry into the market is already encouraging new issuance, Vice President Luis de Guindos and board member Isabel Schnabel said.

"It appears that these purchases have had the desired effect as many dormant commercial paper programmes have been reactivated by new issuance," the two board members said in a joint blog post on Friday.

The ECB, which started to buy non-financial commercial paper last week as part of its broader 750 billion euro ($811 billion)Pandemic Emergency Purchase Scheme, estimates the market at around 75 billion euros.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)