On the other hand, the ECB won’t buy more than 33% of each issuer’s debt. The 33% issuer limit applies to the combined holdings of bonds bought under all of the ECB’s purchase programmes and to the universe of eligible assets in the 2 to 30-year range of residual maturity.
It is a means to safeguard market functioning and price formation, as well as to mitigate the risk of the ECB becoming a dominant creditor of euro area governments. One last remark on the modalities of the programme.