European markets unsure ahead of US payrolls

European equities are expected to open slightly lower Friday as investors react to more information on the European Central Bank's (ECB) bond buying program and markets look ahead to crucial U.S. jobs data.

European equities ended higher on Thursday after the ECB set a start date for its bond-buying program and raised economic growth forecasts for the euro zone.

During ECB President Mario Draghi's regular press conference following the central bank's policy meeting, he said the ECB's 1 trillion euro ($1.1 trillion) bond-buying program would start on March 9. He also upgraded the ECB's economic growth forecasts for 2015 and 2016 to 1.5 percent and 1.9 percent respectively and revised its inflation forecasts.

On Friday, however, global markets are looking to U.S. nonfarm payrolls data for more clues on when the U.S. Federal Reserve might start raising interest rates.

Economists forecast 240,000 nonfarm payrolls were added in February, down from the 257,000 in January and below a three-month trend that, with revisions, was the strongest pace of hiring since the 1990s at 336,000. Poor winter weather is expected to be blamed for the weaker numbers.

The unemployment rate is expected to have slipped in February to 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent, when the report is released at 8:30 a.m. EST Friday.

In other news, British finance minister George Osborne said not radically restructuring Royal Bank of Scotland in 2010 was a mistake and now says he would like "to get rid of the stake as quickly as we can" after the general election, the Financial Times reported early Friday.

In other banking news, Commerzbank is nearing an agreement to pay U.S. authorities more than $1.4 billion to settle allegations it violated U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported Thursday evening, citing sources.

Data releases Friday include German factory orders and industrial production, the U.K. Halifax house price index and a second reading of euro zone fourth quarter gross domestic product. Zurich Insurance and Parmalat report earnings.