Banking chiefs head for the hills in bid to leave cheap money behind

At the Jackson Hole bankers' summit this week, the talk will be of ending quantitative easing - and this time it will be serious

It is credited with preventing the worst global recession since at least the second world war from turning into something far worse. But after the injection of trillions of dollars into financial markets to cushion the blow from Covid-19, the era of quantitative easing could be coming to an end.

This week, attention will turn to the gathering of central bank chiefs in Jackson Hole for clues about how the US Federal Reserve plans to bring its vast QE bond-buying programme to an eventual halt after more than a year of emergency stimulus.

Leading central banks now own more than 18tn in government bonds and other assets, an increase of more than 50% on pre-pandemic levels