The ECB is set to increase quantitative easing by year-end

The European Central Bank is expected to extend its trillion-euro bond-buying program beyond March 2017 and announce to expand the universe of eligible bonds as part of its seemingly never-ending struggle to kick-start the euro zone's economy.

The central bank and its President Mario Draghi has been trying to push inflation back to its goal of below but close to 2 percent with a plethora of measures and instruments ranging from negative deposit rates to spur lending, a quantitative easing (QE) program that has been buying 80 billion euro ($89 billion) in bonds every month and interest rates close to zero - but without a breakthrough success.

Analysts believe the ECB's governing council has its work cut out when it meets to decide on monetary policy Thursday. The headline rate of inflation remained unchanged at 0.2 percent in August. Core, or underlying inflation, which excludes energy, goods, alcohol and tobacco, fell from 0.9% in July to 0.8%. According to them ECB will expand the duration of its QE programme from March 2017 currently to September 2017 and the central bank will most likely o announce changes to its QE programme by either buying into bonds yielding less than the deposit rate or by buying bonds below the two years' maturity.

A poll of 70 analysts conducted by Reuters earlier this week forecast that the ECB will take no action when it meets Thursday but will extend its QE program by the end of the year.

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