Some emerging markets, like Brazil, and us, sit at the near end: we are aiming to improve market functioning.5  Recognising this distinction, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has referred to emerging market operations as ‘Bond Purchase Programmes’, or BPPs.6 Others have put the term ‘QE’ in quotation marks, to convey the nuance.
Sometimes I think that if we just told people our asset purchases were QE, they might stop complaining that ‘the SARB is conservative’ – a criticism that has somehow survived despite surprise at how much the SARB has already done.