Following the changes to our operational framework in October last year, this number rose further. All these non-standard measures were supplemented by further exceptional steps that the ECB’s Governing Council decided in early May and June this year. •  We now conduct liquidity-providing longer-term refinancing operations with a maturity of 12 months.
This will further lengthen the maturity at which we provide banks with liquidity at fixed rates and full allotment. This move is consistent with the operations we have undertaken since October 2008 and it recognises the central role played by the banking system in the euro area economy.