To alleviate banks’ uncertainties about their liquidity positions, the ECB has during the crisis increased the provision of credit against collateral to banks on longer maturities, too. At times, credit has been provided with a maturity of as long as 36 months.
The longer-term refinancing operations have played an important role in increasing the liquidity of the banking system, and particularly in decreasing the uncertainty involved. But now, as the situation has calmed down somewhat, a large part of the excess liquidity provided has returned to the central bank.