However, during the recent period of turbulence, open market operations have aimed also at ensuring the continued access of solvent banks to liquidity, notably by contributing to smoothening the impaired functioning of the money market.
By doing so, the ECB has intended to contribute to re-establishing confidence among market participants and to  6  See Bordo, M. (2007), “The crisis of 2007: The same old story, only the players have changed”, Remarks prepared for the Fed Chicago and IMF Conference on Globalisation and Systemic Risk.