Largely in response to this recalibration, we have seen a very high take-up in our operations by banks, which has translated to a continued flow of credit to households and firms and kept lending rates at historic low levels.
Moreover, we decided to conduct a new series of seven pandemic emergency longer-term refinancing operations (PELTROs) to provide liquidity support to the euro area financial system and help to preserve the smooth functioning of money markets by providing an effective backstop following the expiry of the bridge longer-term refinancing operations (LTROs) conducted since March 2020.