Second, non-marketable assets and above all, credit claims (i.e. normal bank loans) have become the largest single asset class in our collateral portfolio. Third, uncovered bank bonds constituted the largest marketable asset type in 2009, mostly in non-guaranteed forms.
However, the absolute amounts and the share started to decline sharply thereafter, due to subdued issuance volumes, increased risk aversion and concerns about the counterparty risk. In addition to the decrease in issuance, downgrades of banks have rendered a large part of this collateral non-eligible for Eurosystem operations. As a result, guaranteed unsecured bank bonds now dominate non-guaranteed bank bonds.